


Array

by cp_sorensen



Category: espionage - Fandom, military - Fandom, peace - Fandom, rebellion - Fandom, surveillance - Fandom, survival - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 89,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29441199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cp_sorensen/pseuds/cp_sorensen
Summary: State-of-the-art espionage capacity, built up to prosecute decades of global war, is directed inwards. Facing the full might of a corrupt intelligence bureaucracy, a rookie in U.S. intelligence allies with unforeseen rebels as he tries to live long enough to clear his name. Array—“Thoreau meets Ludlum meets Che”—is a timely espionage thriller for anyone living under neoliberal economic policies or the corporatized surveillance state.





	1. Chapter 1

U.S. Navy Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 3 Detachment – Travis Air Force Base, California

“Negative,” the commander of the 60th Operations Group explained. “Always clamp first, then rotate.”  
The commander would stop by the detachment every six months or so, a pedantic ritual that the contractors and enlisted sailors and airmen endured with a grin.  
“Yes, sir,” the senior chief replied, swallowing hard. Engine maintenance had evolved significantly since the commander had last greased his elbows in the early 1990s. The senior chief put down the clamp and stood up beside the workbench.  
“I’m keeping my eye on you,” the commander joked, throwing a friendly punch into the senior chief’s rate insignia.  
The senior chief played along politely. “Oh, we know you are, sir!”  
They both laughed. The commander flicked a piece of lint off the lapel of his dress blues.  
“The branch up in Everett is getting a new manual from Evendale, Ohio, soon, so we’ll let you guys know when it shows up,” the commander said.  
The senior chief replied, “Thank you, sir.”  
The commander nodded, turned, and walked towards the elevator bank. Over his shoulder, upon which the insignia of a silver eagle perched, he added, “Keep up the good work!”  
The senior chief breathed easy. He winked at a contractor on loan from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who had been feigning immersion in his work installing new software updates on the very low frequency communications equipment for one of the Navy’s E-6B aircraft.  
“Is he gone?” the contractor asked, stepping out from behind a shiny computer bank.  
The senior chief nodded.  
“Whew,” the contractor proclaimed, wiping his brow in an exaggerated manner. “Maybe we can actually get some work done now.” He smiled.  
“I kinda like him,” the senior chief confessed. He walked over to the nearby workbench and put down his tools.  
“What do you mean?” the contractor asked. He stood up slowly—his potbelly pushed against his black polo shirt like last night’s leftovers against plastic cling wrap—and sidled up next to the senior chief at the workbench.  
“Well, at least he doesn’t roam around with a bunch of ass-kissers like every other high-ranking officer who comes through here.”  
“Good point.” The contractor opened his lunchbox and took a slug from his thermos. “Very good point.”

The commander stared at the elevator button. It glowed a peachy orange until the doors opened on the second floor. Reminiscing fondly about his younger days commanding a KC-10 tanker, the commander stepped onto the metal walkway that rimmed the second floor. He looked down onto the main workspace. Two Navy enlisted men and five contractors swarmed around their workstations. “They show up when I leave,” the commander muttered. He sighed and began walking to the north side of the facility. Through the grate, he watched the diagnostic equipment and tool racks pass beneath his feet. He rounded the bend and opened the second door, marked MAINFRAME.  
He closed the heavy-duty door behind him, paused, and took a moment to enjoy the industrial air conditioning that helped keep the servers cool. His heart beat rapidly despite the physical comfort. Sweat bombed down his chest and back.  
“For the wife and kids,” he rationalized. In the back of his mind, he sealed off thoughts about the blackmail Mossad had on him, as well as the envelopes of cash he had accepted to carry out this task.  
He pulled out a red flash drive from the silk beneath his lapel, and stepped forth. The low light of the control panel hummed strongly against his irises. 

Less than twenty minutes later, the commander closed the door to his corner office. He slipped out of his dress shoes and glided into a pair of luxury slippers—a tradition he had inherited from his predecessor, who was now deputy director of operations at a major east coast weapons lab. He walked slowly over to his colossal desk, made of Hinton’s Oak imported from southern Mexico. He looked out over the flight line. Inhaling deeply, he picked up the landline. He dialed 0-1-1-3-2 and the rest of the number his katsa had made him memorized.  
“Chertoff here,” the voice answered after five strong rings, two of a higher frequency common to many European exchanges.  
“It’s done,” the commander said, somehow managing to keep his wavy voice in check.  
“Roger.” Chertoff’s gruff voice arrived after a slight lag.  
CLICK.  
The commander removed the phone from his ear and set it down gently.  
“It’s done,” he said again, head down, whispering to his slippers.

The skies over western Maryland

Art gazed out his window at the dark greens of western Maryland as the commercial aircraft continued its descent into Dulles International. He leaned back a bit and angled his face against the window in order to catch the first rays of sunrise coming over the horizon. The red-eye flight had been good to him; though he hadn’t fallen asleep, he had made some progress in the novel he was reading. The pages hugged his left index finger snuggly in his lap.  
“See anything good out there?” came the jolly voice to his right.  
Art closed his eyes hard, opened them, and turned to the passenger on his right. Art shook his head, hoping his no-reply would send a message that he wasn’t in the mood to chat. No such luck. The man Art had appraised as a blowhard didn’t heed the cue.  
“Were you in the Bay Area for business, or…?”  
“No, I live out there,” Art replied. “Just coming back to D.C. to visit relatives,” he said, lying. He looked down, cracked his novel, and started reading again.  
“Yeah, I’m a businessman,” the blowhard continued. “Just closed a big deal.” He reached for his n’teenth gin and tonic and slurped down the icy remains.  
Art smiled at him, kindly, and returned his eyes to his pages.  
“What kind of work do you do out there?” the businessman asked, taking out a pair of aviator sunglasses from his coat pocket and placing them atop a flushed widow’s peak.  
Art removed his bookmark, an index card filled with enjoyable quotes and items to look up, from the back of his novel and slid it in place to mark his progress. “I’m an art dealer,” Art explained. It was a good cover. Art went right into a rote spiel, explaining a nuanced, tedious aspect of paintings that was intended to put any listener to sleep. While it didn’t tranquilize the blowhard, Art’s spiel did stop that line of questioning.  
“You like D.C.?” the blowhard asked. “Which coast you like better? East or West?”  
“West. You?” Art had the man pegged for a big drinker, judging by his facial features and general complexion.  
“Oh! West, definitely!” As the boozy businessman blabbed, Art considered the circumstances of his own departure from San Francisco: CIA, ‘the Agency,’ had ordered him back to Langley. An urgent message had given him one day to get back to the East Coast and forty-eight hours to check in with the paper-pushers at Langley.  
He yawned loudly. The red-eye had zapped him. And though he liked air travel, he could never sleep well aboard planes. Cross-country travel, now that he was in his mid-thirties, took a lot out of him.  
Art looked to his right. The businessman was snoring. Well done.

Used to breaking routines while staying loyal to a larger routine—varying his daily activities and routes in order to keep watching eyes guessing, while sticking to a personal schedule that had him in bed at an early hour—Art was exhausted stepping off the red-eye. He donned a camouflage ball cap before entering the concourse. He insisted that the cap cultivated goodwill with the security workers, the majority of whom identified certain camouflage apparel with a popular appreciation for the U.S. Armed Forces or even participation in the wars abroad. Weary and not a fan of bureaucracies or airports, Art was happy to play any visual game that gave him an advantage. He was through the security lines and at the taxi stand within twenty minutes, a new personal record for Dulles International.  
“Library of Congress,” Art said, stuffing the ball cap into his backpack with one hand and fastening his seatbelt with the other. The taxi driver nodded and merged into traffic. “And I’d like to stop at I Street, northwest,” he added, giving the name of a coffee shop there, which he knew would be open at this hour. 

Washington, D.C.

Art clicked ENTER on LAIR—the Langley Access Individual Remote—login page, appreciating the new layers of digital security recently implemented by the Directorate of Digital Innovation. The first decent move DDI has made, Art mused. The new Grough Defense software actually made his job a little easier. It was more intuitive than the in-house program the Agency had trained him on. He ran his fingers through his black hair, short and receding.  
He sat up a little straighter. His soothing brown eyes gazed out over the main reading room floor. He soaked in the view, having arrived at the Library of Congress early enough to get his favorite seat—the southern-most desk in the outer ring. A golden glow from low-slung lanterns complemented rich wood, coating the room in red bath. He caught the playful gaze of the on-duty librarian; Art’s beautiful dark skin and prominent cheekbones had made an impression. Art returned the smile and got back to work.  
Still tired from the redeye flight, he sat up even straighter. A straight spine and stiff posture, he theorized, would help fight fatigue and keep him alert. He focused on collating enciphered names on the laptop screen in front of him. The work was For Official Use Only; his usual work, of much higher classification, would have to wait until he was in a government building with the proper eavesdropping protections in place.  
After twenty minutes of moderate focus, Art decided to call it a day. He clicked UPDATE and then logged out of the encrypted remote access. He closed his laptop gently and slid it into his compact black backpack. He nodded to the auto-shelver. The machine hummed past him with a two crates of books in tow.

The late morning sun drenched Art as he strode—nearly skipped—out of the Library of Congress and down the steps onto Second Street. As he walked, he scanned the concrete jungle that was Washington, D.C. He longed for more green. A tree here or a park there. Something.  
“There!” He spotted a weak sapling, struggling to grow along the curb outside the nearest Metro stop. He headed towards it. Walking quickly, east on Independence against the sun’s might, he waved to the street vendor on the corner. He was excited to see a little bit of plant life. In Art’s view, that had been one of the great benefits of case officer training; relatively undisturbed, the York County woods had offered him a calming peace of mind.  
He passed an overflowing green dumpster. All manner of rubbish and discarded resources tumbled out. Watching his step, Art arrived at the sapling. He bent over, cleared away a faded plastic bottle with the back of his hand, and prodded the dirt with his fingers.  
“Meager soil,” Art confirmed. He began gathering litter and discarded resources from around the tree’s base. Herds of D.C. pundits, lobbyists, and wonks passed him by. He separated out the recyclables. Hands full, he made a trip to the dumpster, tucking the non-recyclables down the cracks. Returning to the tree, he knelt and loaded up the recyclables in his backpack, fitting the grimier ones in the side pouches.  
Determined to see more green, Art concluded he’d visit Lincoln Park, and then go back and nap at the townhouse Langley had assigned him. He stood up, shouldered his backpack, and eyed the sign for the Orange Line. “I hope you make it through the winter,” Art said, bidding the sapling farewell.  
Leathery, humid air greeted him as he reached the Metro underground. His sneakers squeaked as he pivoted off the bottom step. He entered the railcar and sat down next to the far doorway. Just being in the railcar eroded his spirits further. Its plastic interior smelled like caustic cleaning supplies and burned polystyrene. The white walls and pill-red seats mocked his sense of time. They oozed a cartoonish feel, as if a 1980s architect had tried to design a train of the future. But no retro ridicule or even his excitement about seeing Lincoln Park could contend with jetlag. As the rail car pulled out of the station, fatigue’s rapacious narcotic won, drawing Art’s eyelids down like a timeworn blindfold.

“Last stop,” the pre-recorded voice informed Art. “Last stop, Eastern Market.”  
Though he hadn’t fallen completely asleep, he did feel slightly rested opening his eyes as the Metro car slowed down in jerky waves.  
Art looked outside the railcar as he stood up. ASTERN MARK T ran along the far wall, the bright red letters missing several small bulbs.  
“Last stop,” the automated conductor voiced again.  
Art exited onto the platform along with four other pedestrians from other railcars. He recounted the pedestrians as a matter of habit. The platform was neat and stifling. Art ascended to the street, taking the steps two at a time but still lagging behind the other passengers. He glanced back at the abandoned railcar as he walked up the stairs. The railcar’s doors remained open, its interior lights dimmed.  
“Last stop?” Art muttered. “The Orange Line ran out past Cheverly during my grad school days.”  
Art reached the top of the stairs. Those pedestrians in front of Art scattered into the surrounding buildings like gentle squirrels. He kept walking, his head on a swivel taking in the environment. Most of the windows facing the street were broken. Abandoned stalls lined the sidewalks. Art saw no signs of the hustle and bustle that characterized Washington, D.C., just a few blocks to the west.  
A thought occurred to him: the English learning center where he used to volunteer while getting his Master’s at Georgetown… It was on F Street and Eleventh. Maybe he could stop by there before Lincoln Park. Art quickened his pace, hoping the school had fared better than some of these buildings. He smiled, rounded a bend, and came face to face with a chain-linked fence. His smile dropped. A faded, tin sign hung over green cloth:

THIS ROAD LEADS TO AREA C.  
ENTRANCE FOR U.S. CITIZENS FORBIDDEN.

Art walked closer to the fence. He stepped slightly to his left, raised his left hand, and poked his finger through a hole in the fabric, enlarging the gap slightly. He adjusted his feet, feeling the ground beneath him squish airily. He brought his right eye to the hole and looked through. A large boulevard—tidy, desolate, and broad—stretched to the horizon. Plants of all sizes sprouted beside buildings. In the middle of the road young shrubs heaved the pavement skywards. A lagoon with jagged edges pressed eastward. Art caught something bulbous floating inside it, but he couldn’t distinguish its features.  
A blue smudge moved in his periphery. He turned. A young woman with hard green eyes and a plush cobalt dress hovered towards him.  
“You stepped on my mushrooms,” she said, her voice coarse.  
Art looked down. He was standing in a patch of white and grey mushrooms. He looked up and met her eyes sheepishly.  
“They’re for environmental remediation,” her coarse voice explained.  
“How do I—?”  
“Get in?” she finished. “You don’t.”  
Art couldn’t tell if she had emphasized ‘you’ or ‘don’t.’ Was he not allowed or did she mean people in general? He cocked his head.  
“You’re wondering when they sealed this place off,” she observed. She jumped a little when she finished the sentence.  
Art nodded.  
“You didn’t apologize for your behavior. You local?”  
Art nodded again.  
“Not too local,” she appraised with a hop.  
Art said nothing. He looked around the young woman. Nobody else approached the fence. In fact, the few pedestrians in sight were sticking to the far side of the road.  
“You look worried,” she said, leaning up against the fence. The green fabric sunk into the chain-links in concentric waves. “Don’t be.”  
Art shrugged. He caught her eying the recyclables protruding from his backpack.  
“You recycle?”  
“I reduce and reuse first,” Art replied, mildly haughty.  
“You’d fit in well there.” She gestured to the other side of the fence.  
“Yeah?” Art asked, planning his escape route.  
“It’s the city’s green lung,” the young woman said proudly, slowly rubbing her left temple against the fence’s fabric.  
“The what?”  
“The city’s green lung,” she repeated.  
“I see,” Art replied coolly. He was cranky and tired. He wanted to visit the English language center, the park, and then nap.  
She spoke rapidly. “Trash. Each block in there is responsible for taking care of a different type of discarded resource.”  
Art was impressed. Part of him hoped it was true.  
“Congress is crippling them, though. Only the resource trucks are allowed in and out. They’re hurtin’ for potable water and there’s no formal healthcare to speak of…” She trailed off.  
“You’ve been inside?” Art asked after a moment.  
She nodded, stifling clear enthusiasm.  
Art felt oddly at ease in her presence. He turned around and peered through the hole in the fabric again, though still keeping one eye on the blue youth. He leaned right and looked left. An elevated basketball court stood out near the jagged lagoon down the road, its dusty surface raised a few feet off the ground.  
“Smart Cities,” the blue youth said.  
Art pulled back from the fence. “Huh?” Art had read about U.S. Congress’ implementation of a Smart Cities plan, but didn’t know if that was what she was talking about.  
“The only thing ‘the East’ got was a basketball court,” the young woman said. She hopped away from the fence. “‘And not just any basketball court,’ they say,” she concluded.  
“Where are you going?” Art inquired.  
“Home. Is that okay?”  
“Are you sure I can’t enter?” Art asked to her back. “I used to work in there.”  
“It’s sealed off pretty good, as far as I know.” The way she stretched out the final word gave Art the distinct impression that she knew more than she was letting on. “You don’t want to go in there anyway,” the woman said loudly, now several meters away. “In there resides what the Post’s editorial board calls ‘low filth.’” She rounded the bend by the Metro stop, her voice dropping off abruptly. Her cobalt dress skimmed the graffiti on the brick corner, like a stage curtain closing a show.  
Art jogged after her and turned the bend, but caught no sight of her. A lone vagabond drifted along the far side of the street.  
He felt valiant eyes watching him from above as he descended perplexed and exhausted back into the Metro station. 

Chevy Chase, Maryland

Rain speckled Donna Stockton’s brow as she walked south on Wisconsin Avenue, though patchy blue skies sparkled above.  
“Bull,” her daughter Angela rebuked. A massive billboard momentarily doused Angela and her mother with shadow.  
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Donna Stockton said, then adding, “Please.”  
Thick traffic churned up the lanes to their left.  
Angela sighed. Her sigh turned into a cough, expelling some exhaust.  
“I should be the one who’s sighing,” Donna said with a light laugh. “You get suspended from school and then try to sneak out at night.”  
Angela kept her periwinkle eyes on the concrete. She asked, “Remember when we used to plant seeds between the cracks?”  
“Oh!” Donna proclaimed. “Don’t try to work me like that!” She smiled on the inside, admiring her teenage daughter’s creativity.  
The sprinkles of rain stopped.  
“I don’t remember the walk to Michael’s school being this long,” Angela whined.  
“We’re almost there,” Donna guaranteed.  
“Why couldn’t I have stayed home?”  
“You have to earn trust,” Donna stated.  
Her daughter pivoted to another angle. “I could’ve baked something for tonight. Aren’t you having people over?”  
“Shit!” Donna said. “I forgot to pick up the dessert. Our walk back is going to take a little longer.”  
Angela sighed. “Don’t you mean ‘shoot?’”  
“Shoot what?” her mom asked, striding past the glare of another monster billboard.  
“Never mind.” She giggled.  
“You know violence is never the answer, right?” Donna asked.  
“You’ve given us that lecture plenty of times,” her daughter assured.  
“Thanks, by the way.”  
“For what?” her daughter asked, pausing to take off her heels. She caught up to her mom in two elongated paces.  
“For reminding me about the pastries.”  
“What’re you gonna make?” The sidewalk, recently swept, still had a few choice piles of leaves. Her daughter aimed well, appreciating the crunch.  
“I was thinking some sort of profiterole.”  
“What the hell is that?”  
“Heck. What the heck is that,” Donna corrected.  
“So you can say ‘shit,’ but I can’t say ‘hell?’”  
“Isn’t that funny?” Donna redirected.  
“What?”  
“That it sprinkled a bit of rain even though the clouds are a ways off.”  
They crossed Nottingham Drive. Angela looked west. The grid of cars held thick to the horizon.  
“How long am I gonna be grounded for?”  
“I have to talk to your father about it.”  
“He’s been working a lot lately,” Angela noted. “You too.”  
Donna looked at her daughter. “Things’ll calm down soon.”  
Her daughter looked up.  
“Since when do you wear heels?” the mom asked, meeting her daughter’s youthful eyes.  
“You never told me what a profiterole is,” Angela reminded her mom.  
“It’s like a cream puff,” Donna replied, admiring her daughter’s redirection.  
They crossed Norwood Drive in silence, Donna doing her best to enjoy the crisp fall aromas that sneaked through the automobile pollution. Leaf piles were a Stockton family favorite. So were the candles the family made together.  
Donna Stockton thought quick and hard about the life she and her husband had made. She knew her daughter, Angela, had a good heart and would turn out well. Angela just hated the stifling routine of school and longed for adventure. Donna knew her son, Michael, would continue to be a handful, but he was surrounded with love. She considered her husband’s job working for a weapons contractor in McLean, Virginia. She thought about her job as a housewife. She thought about their shared work as—.  
“We’re here!” Angela yelled, stomping on a particularly fluffy pile of leaves.

Connecticut

“Hiiii,” Britt Worrell said, tucking her smartphone between her ear and shoulder. She entered her study.  
“We’ve got everything set up for tomorrow’s strategy session,” Britt Worrell’s campaign manager, stated. “Are you enjoying your first and last day off?”  
Britt laughed. “You bet.” She loved her study—square red floor tiles, teak cabinets, and an old brick fireplace—and was eager to savor every bit of free time before the final months of her gubernatorial campaign. Her husband’s negativity—“Why don’t you get a real desk?”—echoed in her mind as she unfolded a smooth desktop from the cozy wall mount. Despite their differing tastes, their relationship had thrived ten loving years.  
“What else can we tackle today?” the campaign manager asked.  
“Please finish up those placards and crunch the numbers again for Litchfield County. I want to make sure we didn’t overlook anything.” Britt sat down on her ergonomic stool and slid her laptop out from a nook in the wall. Just a little work, and then she’d curl up with a book.  
“You got it. See you bright and early tomorrow!”  
“Thanks again.” Britt hung up the phone as she opened her ultra thin laptop screen. Not wanting to get up and find her reading glasses, she tapped a button at the top of her keyboard. A red light started blinking on the back of her laptop and then her monitor’s image projected directly onto the door in front of her.  
“Much better,” Britt said. Eyes on the crystal clear projection, she wiggled her finger to find the cursor and then double-clicked on the email icon.  
Five new email headers popped up. She selected the one sent by her campaign manager. The email read: How are these for placard designs?  
“Weird. I thought you were still working on that project,” Britt thought aloud as she clicked to download the PDF. She stretched her arms above her head. One shoulder popped loudly.  
“Umgh,” she moaned. She stood up and skipped to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. At forty years old, she didn’t feel a day over thirty.  
She returned to her study with a fresh mug. She sat down at the desk, warmed her fingers around the mug for a bit, and then perused her Downloads folder for the placard PDF.  
Nothing. No file.  
She clicked to her inbox and tried downloading the attachment again.  
Nothing.  
“Must be broken or something,” she muttered, and quickly typed a reply to her campaign manager informing her of the glitch.  
Britt stood up, deactivated the projector, dimmed her computer monitor and strode over to the couch, mug in her hands.  
“Mmmmm,” she cooed, settling into the cushions in front of the fireplace. 

Three pages into a hagiography about the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, Britt’s cell phone rang loudly. She peered over the top of her magazine and saw it vibrating at the edge of the fold-down desk.  
“Nope,” she said. “Not today. Not on my day off.” She read another page. Her phone buzzed with the distinct sound of a text message.  
She shook her head.

McLean, Virginia

“Completed,” the Grough computer programmer said routinely, alerting his supervisor regarding his success installing malware on Britt Worrell’s computer.  
The supervisor at Grough Corporation’s Cyber Division strutted across the expansive workspace. “Nice,” she said simply. She knew her programming staff well, and knew this particular programmer responded best to no-bullshit compliments.  
“Thank you,” the Grough programmer replied with a smile. “Email,” he reviewed in soft tones, “helps us paint a better picture of the target’s life. When arranged properly, mundane details and embarrassing minutiae can describe the target with accuracy and precision.” He finished arranging the pertinent files on his desktop as the supervisor stepped into his workspace.  
“Hit me,” the supervisor ordered, asking for details of the programmer’s achievement.  
“Well,” the programmer replied, “we’ve got total access to their house’s local area network.”  
“Outstanding,” she said.  
“If you’ve got a team to spare,” the programmer led slowly, “I’d really appreciate some help sorting through all of this.”  
“You’ve got it,” the supervisor replied. “And take lunch whenever.”  
“Sounds good,” the programmer said.  
“As long as you bring me back some of those wings,” the supervisor joked. She walked away, impressed with their corporation’s software and the dedication of these entry level employees.  
“Of course,” the programmer said, with his slack jaw and glazed demeanor—a thinking face.  
“Our client will be happy,” the supervisor whispered. 

Connecticut

BZZZT! BZZZT! Her smart phone danced a tremor across the fold-down desk. Britt Worrell, candidate in the state’s gubernatorial race, let it run its course. The email sat there in her inbox, ready to let her know that someone had logged into her account from a new IP address. Content, she tossed her magazine aside, walked over to the nearest bookshelf, and selected a fresh novel. A framed picture of her husband—dark jacket, single star on each sleeve, a chest full of ribbons, grey hair complementing the dark Service Dress Blues—stared at her with kind lips and a chiseled brow.


	2. Chapter 2

Washington, D.C.

Ratty work boots crunched loose bitumen. A man dismounted from the back of a van. The vehicle’s hazard lights glinted off his tangerine reflective vest and yellow hardhat. Thick traffic cones swinging in his hands, the man walked into the middle of the intersection and began blocking off the street at a sharp diagonal. One businesswoman in a sedan approached, assessed the worker’s grimace in her headlights, and turned right, away from the impending construction.  
Sirens flashing, a crisp SUV ripped up to the corner and skidded to a halt.   
“That’s unnecessary,” the man grumbled into his reflective vest. He looked up at the flashy new Metropolitan Police Department decal. Through the dusk, his hidebound eyes appraised the decal as a puddle of blue and red vomit.  
“Evening, sir!” an enthusiastic blond police officer said as he popped out of the driver’s seat of the SUV. An array of accessories—attached with hooks, loops, and carabineers—clattered on his person. He took in the scene with a puffed up chest, leaving the vehicle door wide open.  
Adhering to proper customs and courtesies, the worker extended a hand and welcomed the representative of the local precinct. “Right over there, please.”   
The policeman followed the directions. The worker jotted down a mental note to stop by the precinct later and have a few words with the lieutenant; local assistance should be subtle and commonplace, not some flashy rookie.   
“Where’re the rest of you fellas?” the worker asked.   
“En route,” the police officer replied.   
“Nobody comes down this street,” the worker ordered.  
“Roger,” the officer replied, stepping into the intersection.  
“Nobody,” the worker emphasized as he walked past the idling Metropolitan Police Department SUV and headed down the cordoned-off street. “Good help is hard to find,” he muttered. 

Art placed both palms on the bar, made of dark Honduran mahogany, and pushed up, using hooked feet around the footrest to scoot forward in the high back chair. He leaned back, relaxed, now a few centimeters closer to the bar.  
“New wallpaper in the bathroom?” Art asked the bartender.   
Cleaning out one of the soda guns, the bartender replied, “The fake animal prints? We got those about a year ago.”  
Art smiled and yawned tightly. His post-nap grogginess was fading slowly.   
“Been a while since you were here last?” the bartender asked.  
“Yeah.” Art sat a little taller, trying his best to extend one vertebrae to reach the top of the backrest. He eyed the craft brew selection.   
“Still thirsty?” the bartender joked, holstering the soda gun below the bar’s horizon. “Twenty craft brews on tap,” he said in his best corporate boast.  
Gesturing to the mighty wine racks lining the doorway, Art asked, “Actually, could I take a peek at the wine list?”  
“May I suggest the Mader Gewurztraminer?” the veteran bartender asked, placing a soft candle on the bar.  
“You may,” Art said with a smile. He adjusted the candle, appreciating the gentle light as it fell on the newspaper in front of him.  
The bartender opened the wine bottle with a mousy squeak.  
Art quickly absorbed an article about local gangs and then turned to the International section: 

(Nairobi) – Medical professionals from across the Department of Defense and allied nations have joined together to care for the troops who operate in tropical and austere environments. A Forward Visiting Site in an east African nation recently concluded a five-day forum with such a focus.   
Medical personnel collaborated with other governmental agencies in an effort to share their experience and knowledge sets. Best practices were exchanged. Topics focused on the prevention of communicable and infectious diseases, including fevers and dermatological ailments. Nurses, medics, physicians, and even veterinarians from over twelve nations received classroom and hands-on instruction. The Environmental Health Officer from the Forward Visiting Site concluded the first day with the following summation: “Ensuring medical personnel are familiar with advanced medicinal practices is extremely important. It is literally a life or death struggle on the global battlefield.”  
The Department of Defense has long excelled at humanitarian relief. Its most recent operations have spanned earthquake responses in Chile and Armenia to flood relief in Bangladesh. “We coordinate because we put people first in our effort to respond to natural disasters as well as calls for help in increasingly volatile parts of the world. Proper training is the key to mission success.”

Art shook his head, hoping the U.S. government was once subtler in its propaganda efforts. He applied more pressure on the wooden chair’s high back, his favorite feature so far at this watering hole. He turned the page to the sports section. The page’s serrated edge brushed lightly against the contemporary painting that sagged along the wall next to him. Art read a bit, even though he was a mediocre sports fan at best. Once in a while he’d tail a Chinese attaché to a Giants game, but that was about it.

(Pulau Burung) – “Kill! Kill!” echoed around the turf athletic field at Camp Hooley. U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, MCMAP, which teaches hand-to-hand combat, was conducting a graduation ceremony, attended by some of the base’s senior leadership.   
“MCMAP combines many martial arts in order to create one badass fighting style,” the MCMAP instructor informed the crowd. “Our goal is to help each trainee get to the highest level they wish. Martial arts has taught me discipline, and I am honored to pass this on to others.”  
On the last night of training, students had one final training evolution before graduating. They ran from station to station, completing various exercises to demonstrate their knowledge and mettle. Stations, one minute each, tested students in tire throws, pull-ups, sparring, pushups, grappling, box jumps and lunges. Students were dead tired upon completing the course. They were all grinning though, happy to have earned the next belt.   
When asked after the ceremony if he’d consider teaching MCMAP to other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, the MCMAP instructor replied, “War knows no uniform. I’m happy to instruct anyone willing to gut it out.” Sharing, we learned, is the Marine Corps way.

Art again shook his head. Though he was with the Agency, he didn’t believe much of the propaganda that emanated out of D.C. these days.  
“That’s one of the last issues,” the bartender said, placing a generous glass of red in front of Art.  
Art looked up.   
“They’re ending their print edition next week.”   
Art’s forehead furrowed.   
“I said the same thing,” the bartender joked. “We’ve still got some customers who come in and read.”  
“It’s a shame,” Art lamented, sad to see a print paper go.   
His pocket vibrated. He pulled out a smartphone and read the notification. New Terms of Service for one of his apps. He had resisted getting a smartphone for as long as possible, but eventually he caved to Agency mandate. A couple taps of his finger brought him into one of his three social media accounts. The Agency encouraged employees across most directorates to build up an online social media presence in order to keep up appearances of being just an average civilian. Grudgingly playing along with Langley’s rules, Art snapped a picture: the flickering candle in the foreground framed against the wine glass. He felt foolish, but he uploaded it to social media anyway.  
A young woman, hunched over from a lifetime of texting, entered the restaurant and shuffled to the other end of the bar. She sat down. A bowl of soup and an icy martini awaited her.   
Art turned to the end of the section and then folded up the paper. He swiveled in his chair and looked outside through the restaurant’s tinted windows. The south side of the nearest intersection was a prime spot to plant a few begonias, but he’d have to wait until the construction work died down. He recalled when the neighborhood wasn’t so gentrified. He had requested another neighborhood after learning about his immediate transfer back to D.C., but Agency bean counters had insisted on this one.  
The young woman slurped her soup loudly, bringing his attention back inside. He swiveled around to face the bar. Her smart phone dangled three centimeters from her forehead like a marionette. She felt around for her martini glass without breaking eye contact with the brilliant screen.  
“Compliments of the chef,” the bartender said softly. He placed a small dish in front of Art. “Roasted scallops in a mushroom puree, with a side of asparagus and watercress sauce.” The bartender’s head nodded rhythmically as he enunciated each ingredient.  
Art smiled. “Thank you very much.”   
“Your blood pressure is…” the young woman’s smart phone declared. “Your blood oxygen levels are stable. Your temperature is 98.9 degrees… Your…” The young woman clicked a button on the side of her phone, and the airy, caustic voice died mid-sentence. 

“No can do!” the police officer yelled, gesturing wildly. His gear clanked on his chest as he spoke.  
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re conducting routine maintenance.”  
“God damn it,” the mother of three groused.   
“Please follow the detour signs. It’s just a three blocks outta the way,” the police officer assured.   
“But how come he gets to go down the street?” she asked, pointing with two sharp fingers, the rest of her digits still clinging to the steering wheel.  
The police officer looked to where she was pointing. A middle-aged man in khaki pants and a loose blue fleece was walking his dog past the cones. A giftwrapped box was tucked under his left arm.  
“He is a resident on the street,” the police officer said, turning back to the woman.  
The woman huffed and tore off as two other police cruisers arrived. The rookie’s heart jumped a bit, as he looked forward to updating the new arrivals on the situation.

The man in the reflective vest and yellow hardhat took one last glance back up the street. Everything was in position. He looked in front of him at his target, a cozy townhouse. He eased open the side gate for the dog walker in khaki pants. The dog walker strolled right in, nodding firmly at the worker. Together, they walked around to the back of the brick house. The house in which the Agency had billeted Art.

Northeast Virginia

Chertoff stepped brusquely to the front of the conference room. With the build of a tall marathon runner, he covered the room’s width in a few paces. His navy blue trench coat flapped around him, like a tarp over scaffolding. His cunning squint took in the room. Heavy bags drooped beneath his piercing cerulean irises. The bags hung lower than usual; the redeye from Brussels had taken its toll.   
Chertoff shed his trench coat, folded it along worn lines, and draped it over the back of a leather chair at the head of the conference table. A nudge from his knee rolled the chair to the side of the room, out of his way.  
He turned to address the meeting of JESI officials. The Joint Executive for SIGINT Interoperability was initially designed to keep the Five Eyes signals intelligence partners all playing from the same sheet of music. However, lately JESI officials had extended their mandate—they had begun crafting policy and aggressively targeting dissidents within their respective nations. One official from each nation of the Five Eyes was present in the room today.  
“Turn this off,” Chertoff grumbled, motioning to the overhead projector. He hated giving speeches, but when he did, he avoided digital slide presentations like the plague. The projection glared against his naturally high and tight black hair before fizzling out with a whirr.   
The JESI representative from the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau smiled. Chertoff recognized the man as someone who appreciated the refreshing change of pace. Tu Meke.   
“I know you gentlemen have a busy schedule, so I’m making this brief,” Chertoff said rapidly. He looked around the conference room. “First up, some housekeeping issues,” Chertoff said as he began to pace slowly along the head of the table. “IWS 10.7 is coming online next week. We don’t expect any major hiccups.” He paused for one second to see if there were any noticeable reactions or questions among the four suits in the room. Satisfied, he continued. “All of you should have a green badge and the senior orange badge.” He held up one of three lanyards around his neck. The plastic rectangles jingled. “If any of you do not, please see my assistant after we disband and she’ll get you squared away.”   
Chertoff’s assistant perked up in the back right corner like a housebroken squirrel. A few heads turned to her. At four foot, eleven inches, and boasting a mane of curly red hair, she was a ball of energy. She smoked like a burn bag, sometimes topping four packs a day. She ran on Turkish coffee, a habit she had picked up at the consulate in Adana, and cans upon cans of diet soda. Chertoff nodded at her as she shuffled a stack of manila envelopes in her lap.  
“Although—”  
“We never heard back from you,” the official from Canberra interrupted.   
Chertoff looked at him indifferently, recalling an informative tour that the Australian Signals Directorate official had given at Shoal Bay Receiving Station near Darwin two years ago. Chertoff hadn’t been interrupted in a long time. Out of professional courtesy, he let the slight pass. “Please elaborate.”  
“We submitted a formal request for an official offline inquiry regarding our suspicions that Israel’s Unit 8200 parked fabricated intel in TW in order to sway Five Eyes’ decision making in favor of Israeli political interests. We were—”  
“I’m glad you brought that up,” Chertoff interrupted, his thin patience already eroded. “We ran a sweep last night and found no anomalies. It’s all corroborated.” Chertoff’s casual lie blanketed the room calmly.  
The official from Canberra turned and whispered something to his peer from Wellington. The Wellington official squinted through horned rimmed bifocals, nodded, and sat forward.   
“Now, down to business.” Chertoff paused, meeting the jolly representative from Canada’s Communications Security Establishment eye to eye. “We’ve got a leak,” Chertoff declared. He broke eye contact with the CSE representative.   
Broad mouth and long forehead betrayed relief on the Canadian’s face.   
“What’re the specifics?” the Wellington official asked.   
“We don’t know much. As of this morning, we’re selectively funneling rumors and gossip through predetermined channels to see what leaks. If that doesn’t help pinpoint the source, we’d like unanimous JESI permission to track your own user logs. Will that be a problem?” Chertoff asked the assembled officials.   
Still bodies indicated none dissented.   
“Good,” Chertoff said, jutting his lower jaw out slightly. Permission didn’t matter; the National Security Agency regularly monitored the other four nations’ activities. Permission was superficial, just part of the game to build a little trust. “The only other item I have on my end is a pleasant announcement.”   
The representative from Wellington scratched his right sideburn, eager.  
“Quantum computing,” Chertoff stated.   
All attendees leaned forward.  
“We’ve achieved a breakthrough,” Chertoff acknowledged.   
Eyebrows raised and throats cleared among the officials.  
“I want you to know about this first because you’ve all been very supportive throughout this process. All of you have helped with funding and most of you have donated personnel and workspace, especially in the early going. We are grateful.”  
“Our pleasure,” the representative from the U.K. said, breaking his silent streak.  
“Remember, anyone can be an insurgent,” Chertoff stated, verbally herding the like-minded bureaucrats in attendance. “We must remain vigilant.” He shifted his feet, widening his stance. He added, “We’re still refining several processes, so we hope to share more with you by the end of the month. Of course, as soon as everything is up and running, we’ll give you full access to our quantum computing.”

The Wellington official sniffed, but said nothing. His country’s primary civilian intelligence agency, which deliberately underplayed its strengths in international fora, had briefed him before he left Wellington regarding U.S. developments in quantum computing. He knew the U.S. government had no intention of sharing the full capabilities of any quantum breakthrough. He knew a breakthrough of any magnitude would render traditional intelligence sharing arrangements obsolete. His best move was to not react, so he sat quietly and wiggled his toes.  
“That about does it,” Chertoff concluded. “If we don’t have any questions, I’m sure you’re all eager to grab a bite in the cafeteria downstairs before heading to Langley to meet with the interagency taskforce.”  
Chertoff’s assistant stood up quickly. She darted over to his side. “Their convoy will be outside in five minutes,” she said shrilly.   
The Wellington official rose from his chair. He had expected more of a meeting of the minds. He and his JESI peers shuffled out of the conference room in stunned silence. He wanted to rush to his embassy on Observatory Circle in order to discuss the quantum computing revelation with relevant decision-makers back home. Though, if the U.S. had indeed made and implemented a significant breakthrough in quantum computing, the partner nations’ already suspect lines of communication from D.C. to their respective capitals would definitely be compromised. How to proceed? The Wellington official inhaled deeply as he headed towards the elevator bank.   
A binary digit, or a bit, was the unit of information upon which all traditional computers were built. A bit was able to be either a zero or a one. Traditional computers were inherently limited because computations were based on values of zero or one, on or off, yes or no. In quantum computing, the quantum bit, qubit, could be both zero and one at once. Hence, multiple calculations could occur at the same time. Intelligence organizations worldwide lusted after this vastly increased computing power.   
Many obstacles stood in the way of government scientists trying to build an operational quantum computer. For starters, qubits had been losing their ambiguity—their ability to be both zeros and ones—and had been becoming straightforward zeros or ones. Furthermore, due to size and technological constraints, scientists had for years struggled to build prototypes featuring more than a couple dozen qubits. Attaining the ten billion qubit goal had seemed far out of reach. But these obstacles were being addressed methodically. Scientists adeptly harnessed ions, charge atoms, in order to trap qubits in their ambiguous state. Scientists simultaneously developed new instruments and modular designs in order to fit computer prototypes in smaller and smaller spaces. Scientists also utilized microwaves and precise applications of voltage in order to refine and empower the building blocks of the circuits performing quantum computations. Through persistence, dedication, and endless government funding, the United States intelligence community had mastered quantum computing.  
The Wellington official broke off from the group of JESI officials and took the stairs. With a bewildered look, the official from Canberra followed him. Their loafers peeped loudly in the vacant stairwell. Neither of them breathed a word. 

The conference room door closed behind the departing Five Eyes partners. Chertoff looked at his personal assistant as he gathered up his navy blue trench coat.   
“Task Fort Meade to monitor Art’s communications.”  
“Already done, sir.”   
“Email, too?” Chertoff slid his left arm into the coat sleeve.  
“All devices and avenues of communication are covered.”   
“Did you forge Bureau approval?”  
“None needed. They went along with it willingly.”   
Chertoff’s right arm whooshed into the other sleeve of his trench coat. “Meet me here, tomorrow, oh-four-hundred,” Chertoff ordered. “We’re going recruiting.”

Chevy Chase, Maryland

“The gardeners are going to change the type of mulch next season,” Donna Stockton told her dinner guest, Mrs. Hardy. “Because Michael’s allergies are acting up.” She reached into an antique armoire, pulled out two rattan coasters, and placed them on the dining room table.   
“Why don’t you get ready for bed?” she asked her son, Michael, ten years of age. He sped past in his red and blue pajamas, disappearing up the stairs in a violet blur.  
“Sorry we’re arriving separately,” Mrs. Hardy apologized. “My husband had to work late again tonight.”  
“Speak of the devil,” Donna said, looking through the sunroom to see Mr. Hardy lumbering up the stone walkway. Donna grabbed Mrs. Hardy’s hand and led her to the front door. Donna tracked Mr. Hardy through the bay windows as he passed the old-growth hickory tree, which was covered in ivy, and stepped up to the front door.   
“Hellooo!” Donna greeted, opening the red door fully. “Come on in!”   
Mr. Hardy gave Donna a warm hug and then bent down to give Mrs. Hardy a kiss.   
“Thank you for having us over! I hope my wife’s been behaving!” Mr. Hardy wiped his dress shoes on the welcome mat.   
“Oh, of course!” Donna played along. She led Mr. Hardy into the kitchen.   
“Who does your gardening? There’s not a leaf on the ground!”   
“He gets excited about this stuff,” Mrs. Hardy explained.  
Donna laughed, falling fully into her role as host. Mr. Hardy was a Pentagon lawyer, and his wife was a high-profile lobbyist—the perfect neighbors.   
“Look who’s here, Richiieeee!” Donna squawked, addressing her husband.   
“Hey, my man!” Richard yelled from the TV room, located just off the kitchen.  
Mr. Hardy peeled off from the wives. Richard—sandy hair, restless eyes—greeted Mr. Hardy with a firm handshake and a cold brew.   
“What’s the score?”   
“We’re behind ten-zip.”  
Mr. Hardy glanced at the game clock. “That’s okay. It’s still early.” He took a sip. “You going to cut down that ivy?”   
“What ivy?” Richard replied, running his beer can across his brow. “You’re not hot?” Richard asked. “Take your jacket off.”  
“I’m good. Thanks though. I run cold,” Mr. Hardy replied.   
“Richie, where’d you put the red candles?” Donna called from the other room, cradling two wine bottles for Mrs. Hardy to peruse.   
“I don’t know, hun,” Richard replied. Addressing Mr. Hardy, he noted, “See how well he reads the D-line? This kid is going places.”   
“I told you to move them up from the basement.”  
Mrs. Hardy tapped the bottle resting against Donna’s left arm.  
“See. Twelve yard gain,” Richard said to Mr. Hardy. “Then check upstairs!” Richard yelled to his wife through the wall.   
Donna smiled fiercely.   
“He’s only a sophomore, too,” Mr. Hardy added.  
“They’re not up there,” Donna replied, uncorking the wine bottle with a gratifying pop.  
“I haven’t touched them, dear,” Richard said, patient cords wearing thin.  
“Let me help you, Donna,” Mrs. Hardy offered.  
Pulling the soufflé out of the oven, Donna insisted, “No, he usually helps. He’ll help.”  
She placed the dish on the marble countertop with a smooth pivot. “Mind turning the game off? We’re about to eat.”  
“Just a sec, dear,” Richard said, soft enough for the walls to absorb.   
“Heyy-oh!” Mr. Hardy celebrated with a fist pump.   
Richard rolled his head over comically. “That. Was. Smooth,” he said, applauding the touchdown.  
“I noticed you don’t have any smart devices in your house,” Mrs. Hardy said, trying to change the subject while Donna juggled the plates. “We just picked up the latest voice assistant, and let me tell you, it’s a dream!”   
Donna replied, “Mmmhmmm.”  
Mrs. Hardy walked into the TV room, shot Richard a stern look, and grabbed Mr. Hardy by the wrist. “Dinnertime,” she said firmly. 

“So yesterday we had two pizzas, a hummus platter, two big salads, um…” Mrs. Hardy recounted.   
“Your pizza looked really good, too,” Donna praised, joining the conversation about the social gathering they had all attended yesterday.  
“Yours did too!” Mrs. Hardy said, pouring another glass of red wine. She stole a glance at Donna’s toned shoulders and voluminous curly black hair, mid-pour. Richard smiled, taking it all in.   
“This was just a great food week,” Richard said, laughing inside at the superficiality.   
“You should shake that,” Mr. Hardy told his wife.  
Mrs. Hardy shook a bottle of hot sauce gently.   
“No, not like that.”   
“I think she knows how to shake a bottle,” Donna interjected.  
“If you pour now, it gets all oily,” Mr. Hardy explained.   
“I am shaking,” Mrs. Hardy said.   
“Stop shaking and pour,” Mr. Hardy stated.  
“She’ll pour when she wants.”   
“Use the spoon.”  
“It doesn’t fit. I tried.”  
“I’ll get another one.” Donna rose from the table and took a quick trip into the kitchen.  
Richard read concern in Donna’s crumpled eyebrows.  
“Where is Angela?” Mrs. Hardy asked, placing the bottle at arm’s length.  
“The dog house,” Richard said, slowing down with each word.  
Donna returned to the table and put a small ornate spoon next to Mrs. Hardy, who smiled gently.  
Mr. Hardy laughed at Richard’s delivery. “I ate a lot yesterday, just in general,” Mr. Hardy said. “I didn’t even think I was going to eat at dinner, but once I started…”   
Richard laughed in turn. “Want another cold one?” he asked. He pushed out his upholstered chair with a grind and stood up.  
Addressing her husband, Donna asked, “Can you lift your chair up next time? It scuffs the floorboards when you drag it like that.”  
Richard nodded, turned towards the fridge, and then rolled his eyes.  
“Everything was so good,” Mrs. Hardy said, a clear attempt to steer Donna’s wrath away from Richard.   
“You stayed there for a while, yeah?” Donna asked.  
“Yeah we closed the place down,” Mrs. Hardy crowed.   
“How late does the Grille close?” Richard asked, returning to the table. He slid a cold beer past the salad and into Mr. Hardy’s outstretched palm. Donna glared at Richard.  
“One of Richie’s colleagues had a little too much to drink. Did you see him?”   
“Uh oh!” Mr. Hardy yelled, buzzed.  
They all laughed politely.   
“How did you find the service?” Mrs. Hardy asked.   
“It was good. It was good.”  
“Hey, are you guys headed to the Cape this summer?” Mr. Hardy inquired.   
“Doubtful. We’ll see how much time Richard can get off. “ Donna said quietly.   
“Valtin is riding you pretty hard?” Mr. Hardy asked, referring to Richard’s employer, one of the biggest corporations in the U.S. war industry.  
In the middle of a bite, Richard managed, “It’s a slog.”   
“You like it though, right?”   
Richard nodded, still chewing.   
“What’re you working on these days?”   
Richard swallowed his bite. “It’s a new datalink for the CH-53P,” Richard said dryly.   
“Boring stuff?” Mr. Hardy asked.   
“Eh,” Richard replied. “It pays the bills. What about you?”   
“Same thing,” Mr. Hardy stated. “Eh!”   
Richard laughed.   
“The lawsuits keep coming at the Pentagon, and we keep knockin’ them down,” Mr. Hardy boasted. His law office shot down litigation like Valtin’s finest missile battery shot down test rockets. “It’s a slog though, like you said.”  
“And you?” Donna chimed in, nodding politely to Mrs. Hardy.   
“You know how it is,” Mrs. Hardy said quietly. “Our clients are never satisfied.”  
“But it’s enjoyable, yeah?”  
Mr. Hardy roared, “Yes, ma’am! She makes the big bucks!”  
The table laughed civilly at the man’s outburst.   
“So work is exhausting for us all, but I, for one, am thankful that we’re able to get together every so often,” Richard serenaded.   
Donna smiled. “The Grille’s ceviche is just so good,” she said, returning to a more comfortable topic.  
Richard watched his wife stoke the guests’ identity as self-proclaimed foodies.  
“I know they have a sea bass one. I usually get the sole. I’m dying to get the sea bass next time I go,” Mrs. Hardy responded.  
“They do a really nice job,” Mr. Hardy said.  
A lull in the conversation took hold.  
“Did you see their cocktail list, though?” Richard asked. “They were making cocktails with Frangelico and something else.”  
“White Russians, I saw, and…” Donna added.   
“Whiskey Sours, too,” Richard added.   
“Was it all alcoholic drinks or—”  
“No, no. Richard was drinking seltzer and we were trying to switch his colleague over to plain pineapple juice.  
“So Angela, she—”  
“Don’t,” Donna warned, but Richard knew where he was headed.   
“What? I’m sure our friends here would like to hear about our rebellious daughter.”  
Donna looked down, closely examining the tongs on her fork.   
Mrs. Hardy, glassy, stared straight ahead.   
“She—”, Richard tried again.  
“Please, Richie,” Donna implored. “Just let it go. We’ll talk about it later.”  
“What?” Richard said with a flutter of his lips. “Maybe they’ll have some input in the matter.”   
“We’re having a little trouble disciplining Angela,” Donna explained. “But it’s nothing,” she added. Her dagger stare had no effect on Richard.   
“So here’s the deal,” Richard slurred.  
“God damn it!” Donna exploded.   
Mr. Hardy inhaled deeply.   
Mrs. Hardy began collecting the plates.   
“You always do this!” Donna yelled across the table.   
Richard’s gaze fell on the center of the table. He had crossed the line.   
Donna stood up so quickly that her chair briefly teetered on its hind legs. She stormed out of the room, napkin in hand.  
Richard took a quick sip and then stood up, careful to lift his chair as he stepped away from the table. 

Grinning, Donna closed the bathroom door. “You are goooood!”  
Reclined on the bed, Richard looked up from a thick brochure and broke into a devilish laugh. “You were outstanding!”  
“I thought you hated football!” Donna purred, slinking over to the king-sized bed.   
Unable to wait for her ample curves, Richard tossed the brochure of a rival war corporation on the floor and scampered to the bottom of the bed. “I do! But you, you picking those fights. You were on fire, love. Honestly.”  
“I’m glad I could please you.” She climbed on top of him. “Wasn’t that the kind of stuff suburban couples are suppose to fight about?”   
Richard laughed and rolled her over onto her back.   
“Better make it quick,” she teased. She pointed to the bedside clock: 10:45PM. “I’ve gotta be in Knox Hill in two hours.” 

Groton, Connecticut

“Your honor, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has opened up twenty-six separate investigations into Grough Corporation’s East Asia division, and not once have they found a single violation or instance of misconduct,” the dainty lead council stated.   
“They didn’t even find any infringement upon the letter or intent of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice,” blurted out an eager co-council.   
Rear Admiral Jonathan Worrell, husband of Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Britt Worrell, sternly appraised the conference room from his seat next to the exit.   
His path to such a high rank had been unconventional. Other high-ranking enlisted men and women had entered Officer Candidate School before Worrell, but he was the first to become a flag officer. From chief boatswain’s mate to Rear Admiral and every day in between, Worrell never let his peers see him smile. Whenever in uniform he was all Navy all the time; he bled Navy blue and gold. He sat up straighter and smoothed out the front of his khaki shirt, nary an Irish pennant to be found on it. The duty-day had long since ended, but his responsibilities aboard the base extended well into the evening.   
“Even after Pacific Fleet implemented new ethics policies, NCIS couldn’t find any wrongdoing,” the lead council added.   
“Please, order. Order, please,” a tired old Captain stated. “I run a loose courtroom after all my years, but your constant interruptions must cease.” Surveying the rookie Judge Advocates, the tired Captain stated, “I’d like to remind all parties that this is merely an arraignment. There will be plenty of time to litigate during the hearing.”   
Rear Admiral Worrell wanted to shift in his seat, but his instincts told him that any movement would be a clear tell. He thought of the smooth, polluted waters of Subic Bay, Jakarta. He then smiled thinking about the moral slips that took place in Sembawang Harbor, Singapore. In his current capacity as chief of staff to the commander of the U.S. submarine force, Rear Admiral Worrell was confident he could continue steering the disciplinary hearing away from any indications of his own misdeeds.  
His phone vibrated. He slid the phone out from under his leg and glanced at the text. 

How is your day, honey?

WONDERFUL, he typed speedily without looking down. He caught himself blinking through the lie. His eyes remained glued on the various ranks huddled around the large table in front of him.   
He weighed his misdeeds, what some might call transgressions. He had helped finagle lucrative contracts for the corporation Grough to resupply the U.S. Pacific Fleet at multiple ports across East Asia. Grough would overcharge for port security, fuel, and supplies, with Rear Admiral Worrell taking a nice cut of the profits. Worrell and the Grough chief executive officer had methodically dispersed the largess among selected officers in the U.S. Navy’s Third and Seventh Fleets. In turn, the officers tipped Worrell off regarding NCIS inquiries.   
Worrell’s methods had been discrete. While the Grough CEO often bribed sailors with prostitutes, electronics, vacations, and expensive dinners, Worrell had preferred to use cold, hard cash. Despite these differences, the Grough CEO and Worrell had worked well together, for the most part; the CEO excelled at methodically placing informants throughout the U.S. Navy bureaucracy, while Worrell excelled at paperwork and insider knowhow. Fortunately, Worrell’s wife knew nothing.   
“Your honor, we have concrete evidence that three different commanders stifled otherwise free and fair implementation of the aforementioned USPACFLT ethics rules for over two and a half years.” Without a breath, he continued, “They also used their authority to block earnest inquiry into Grough’s activities.”   
“Which you will make clear during the course of the general court martial, I’m sure,” the Captain said, his old age cobbling together what patience he had left.   
Rear Admiral Worrell’s phone vibrated again. He looked down. He didn’t recognize the number.

Grough has hacked your wife. They know. 

Washington, D.C.

The man in the reflective vest and hardhat addressed his Tactical Operations Unit colleague, “Good to see you, Bob.”   
Bob placed the dog, a docile Basenji, on the welcome mat outside the back door and returned to the kitchen. With thin black gloves he slid the giftwrapped box onto the edge of the marble countertop. The TacOps division within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence usually avoided a residence’s rear door, but Bob’s overtime surveillance had guaranteed this ingress was ideal.  
“Did you catch that geardo up the street?” Bob asked, referring to the blond police officer.  
The lead TacOps agent shook his head disdainfully and chuckled at the excessive amount of gear the police officer had been wearing. The lead agent slunk out of his boots, leaving them next to the dog on the remaining sliver of welcome mat. Bob did the same.   
The lead agent looked at his watch. “Five minutes, thirty seconds,” he stated. He always worked by the clock, even though they had lookouts ready to radio if Art returned early.   
Bob opened the box—the lid came right off, wrapping and all—and removed the silver appliance. It slid out smoothly. Appliance in hand, Bob hustled to the other side of the kitchen island. He gently but swiftly unplugged the resident’s toaster and swapped it with the identical replacement. He spent an extra thirty seconds lining it up exactly as the original had been positioned.   
“Grub one in place,” he declared, putting the original toaster in the wrapped box.  
The lead agent unzipped his vest and pulled out a baggie. Bob could barely see the minute audio bugs resting inside. “Two more to go,” the lead agent affirmed.   
“I’ll take upstairs,” Bob offered. 

After four minutes, and without a word of goodbye, Bob exited out the back door, scooping up the Basenji’s leash on the way, the latest models of eavesdropping devices now installed throughout the building. The lead agent was still combing the living room carpet with a handheld gardening rake. He followed up each rake stroke with that of a metal fro-pick, ensuring that any hint of light footprints was rendered smooth.

“Thank you, good sir,” Art said to the bartender. He slid a hundred dollar note across the counter.   
The bartender quickly rang him up and returned with some coins. A hundred doesn’t buy what it used to, his grim smirk told Art.  
Art replied with a firm nod and a kind tip.  
“Have a good night.”   
“You too.”   
Art walked outside. The air, crisp and polluted, disappointed him. The woman from the bar was smoking next to the door, a filtered cigarette in one hand, an unfiltered smartphone in the other. Art proceeded to walk up the hill. He paused near a tenacious flower standing tall along a concrete wall. He bent over, doing his best to angle off any passing car exhaust, and savored the lilac aroma.  
Recharged, Art trekked up the hill to the intersection. He stopped twice to pick up litter—discarded resources, as he would call them. He felt frustrated, unable to collect all the little bits of plastic scattered throughout the leaves and grass next to the curb. He straightened up after gathering some packing peanuts from under a young maple tree. His back creaked a bit, and he reminded himself to adopt a kinder posture next time. He continued walking.  
A pale blue digitasm popped out from a bus stop as he passed. “For moderate cost to you, we can crispy your genes to ensure Alzheimer protection. Would that be something you’d be interested in?” Art ignored the talking advertisement and hustled past. “Message us today!” the holographic advertisement yelled after him.  
Art trudged the remaining meters, caught the white WALK sign, and hustled across the street past police vehicles and some construction. A two-minute stroll and Art was at his temporary residence. He opened the side gate, let out a yawn, and trotted around back. He grabbed the railing and swung onto the back steps. Two strides brought him to the top. He paused and turned around in order to appraise the backyard.   
Who’s the gardener? He frowned at the dead space: a concrete wall covered in chipped white paint, a rusty puddle in the corner of a stifling tarmac, and a lone apple tree struggling against human pollution. Art had picked up all the plastic litter in the back yard when he had first arrived, but the area still oozed depression. He turned and unlocked the back door. He disabled the security system and entered the home.   
He looked around the kitchen as he revisited his situation: The Agency had called him back to D.C. only to stick him in this townhouse. He resolved that tomorrow he would head down to Langley and get some answers. The clock on the stainless steel range blinked at him, telling him to call it a night. He shuffled out of the kitchen and collapsed on the living room couch. He sunk into the cushions and into deep reflection.   
He had been a hard worker growing up. Fortunate to receive a few opportunities, he took advantage of them all. While his friends partied in high school, he studied. He learned to love books, which made his long nights tackling Mandarin at university easier. Even his study breaks had been educational. He’d rest his language faculties by tackling puzzles, game theory, and books on military strategy, a soothing classical fugue usually playing in the background. Art’s parents had been supportive of his endeavors. Blue collar and proud of it, they were delighted to be raising a young man who stayed out of trouble in a rough neighborhood. His mom had worked maintenance at the local zoo and his dad had labored tirelessly as part of the city’s Department of Public Works. Both had instilled in him from a young age the need to value the natural world. ‘It’s the source,’ they’d say. Art smiled, appreciating his parents’ wisdom, and wishing they were still alive. Their spirit and lessons lived on.  
His smile faded into a muddled scowl. What would they think of his choice to join the Agency? Probably not too happy. He struggled to reconcile his past with his present. Yeah, he was not the typical Hollywood portrayal of an Agency guy. But what else was he supposed to do with a Masters in East Asian Languages, an aptitude for meticulous analysis, and a gumshoe's spirit?   
Images of his old university professor rose to the forefront of Art’s mind. Art would never forget the day he was officially recruited. The professor had told him to attend office hours one Friday. Art knocked on the professor’s door quietly. “Come in!” the professor bellowed. Art entered, walked to the old man’s desk, and shook his hand. A simply dressed man in a frayed suit bled into Art’s periphery. “Didn’t see me? We’ll work on that,” the man said softly, extending his pale hand. The professor smirked. “Art, I’d like you to meet my old colleague…” In silence, professor escorted the two to a conference room down the hall.   
Art rolled over on the couch, rubbed his eyes, and removed a pillow from behind his right hip. “The man was a decent recruiter,” Art affirmed approvingly. The Agency’s old boys’ network had always looked out for fresh talent. And with the Agency’s top-down push for more diversity, Art was an even more attractive candidate. But he never saw much diversity reflected in his nearly all-white class. The only other student of color had been a man, second-generation Algerian, from a town near Detroit.  
Art pictured the recruiter closing a thin file in the university conference room. “You’re great at piecing signs and signals together. You see the big picture from disparate clues. You excel at Mandarin. You’re patient and thorough. These are all strong attributes for a career in counterintelligence. Now, you still have to perform well in training at The Farm, but barring any problems I see a promising future for you with the Agency.”  
Flummoxed was the word Art often used when thinking about his initial hesitancy. Art was a man of books. He knew U.S. history. He knew Langley was notorious for interfering in the affairs of other nations. But Art was also a man who recognized opportunity when it knocked. He knew the Agency, at the least, could open doors. And, employing over 30,000 personnel, the Agency certainly had others like Art among its ranks.  
“Yes,” Art had affirmed in his most confident voice. “I’d be honored.”  
I’d be honored? The words hounded him as he tried to get comfortable on the couch. He stared into the kitchen and out over the bay window above the sink. The wilting apple tree stared right back at him. The moon’s faint light gave the tree the halo it deserved.


	3. Chapter 3

Virginia Beach, Virginia

“What’re we doing here?” Chertoff’s personal assistant asked as the sedan in which she was riding eased to a halt. “I thought we were going to pick Grough shooters, not active duty SEALS.”  
“They often train at Naval Special Warfare facilities,” Chertoff said, his two hands still on the wheel.  
“I see,” his personal assistant said. She flipped to the final page on her clipboard. “Their de facto rules of engagement have changed over the years.”  
“What rules?” Chertoff replied rhetorically.   
His assistant unbuckled her seatbelt. The two were idling at the far side of a parking lot, near a row of withered azaleas.  
“We do not entertain or support public discussion of classified information because it puts our forces, their families, and our operations at risk,” Chertoff stated formulaically.   
The assistant furrowed her freckled brow. She was sure that Chertoff’s words would be humorous coming from any other person in any other circumstance. She chimed in with her own rote assertion. “All members of the Special Operations Community comply with International Law and, more specifically, the Laws of Armed Conflict, in conducting military operations worldwide.” She reached for a perfectly rolled cigarette that balanced on her knee.   
“Don’t smoke in front of them,” Chertoff ordered. “Some of these guys are extreme about their health.”  
“Except for those who drink like fish,” his assistant mumbled, opening the passenger door. Standing up and smoothing out her blouse, she asked, “How was your trip to Brussels, by the way?”  
“Stay on task.”   
Chertoff’s reply bounced right off of her; she was used to his stern approach.  
The assistant’s stiletto heels sank slightly into the fresh asphalt as they walked toward a giant field house marked 6361 Alpha Leonis Avenue. “How many do you want?” she asked.   
“I want a small group.” Chertoff replied. “No more than three.”  
“I checked the rosters, like you ordered. All the shooters we used on the last Northern Command detail are currently deployed.”  
Chertoff noted, “No problem. We’ll compartmentalize.” He eyed the cigarette behind her ear.   
They walked by an empty Distinguished Guest parking space.  
“Why didn’t you take that space?” she asked, pointing to the sign with her middle finger, which sported a lengthy fingernail coated in black polish.  
Chertoff stayed silent. They walked past a towering statue of a trident outside the main entrance.  
A brief gust of wind lifted the assistant’s wavy red hair like a puppet master as they entered the facility. A ruddy ten-lane track sprawled before them, wrapping its way around the perimeter of the giant complex. Dozens and dozens of exercise stations spread out from the core of the complex: medicine balls, ropes, pull-up bars, free weights, exercise bands, jump ropes, kettle bells, weighted sleds, rowing machines, and more squat racks than one could count. Padded turf and thick rubber matting supported it all.   
“Finished construction in 2015,” Chertoff said.  
“Hmm,” the assistant replied. She eyed two studs who were squat-throwing a bulky medicine ball along the far wall.  
“You should see the lower levels,” he said, hinting at greater abundance.  
They walked across the track, the burnt umber cushioning their soles.  
“Where is everybody?” the assistant asked. “I expected there to be more sailors.” She had counted only twelve or thirteen across the various stations.   
“The operations tempo is very high these days,” Chertoff explained. “Most are deployed.”  
“Hmm,” the assistant said again.  
They walked from station to station, appraising the sailors and the Grough Defense mercenaries. She took notes. He nodded. They received some greetings, but most of the shooters ignored them, perhaps used to the routine, subconsciously accustomed to their roles as high-grade chattel.  
“Those two over there,” Chertoff said, gesturing to the corner. Two short gentlemen, each no more than five-foot seven, were still tossing the medicine ball without rest. One was visibly older than the other, but they both moved well.  
“Sled dogs,” Chertoff asserted.  
“More like wolves,” Chertoff’s assistant noted.  
Chertoff nodded. “If I remember correctly, these two really paved the way with our early use of survey teams.” He squinted, cocked his head, and then nodded.   
“I see,” the assistant said. “They’re with Grough now.” She flipped back to the first page of her clipboard.  
“Now, survey teams are one of our favored methods of bypassing government oversight.”   
“Whose government—foreign or ours?”   
“Both,” Chertoff said.   
The assistant was sure she caught a smirk buzz across Chertoff’s face.   
“Get ‘em greened up and tell them where to report.”  
“Understood,” the assistant replied.   
“And don’t take any shit from them about the high ops tempo,” Chertoff added.   
“Understood.”  
Chertoff walked across the far side of the track to the rear offices.

The Commander’s door was open. Chertoff knocked lightly on the door’s snowy glass window.   
“When the Captain’s away, the Commander plays,” Commander Olson said, looking up from a thick maroon book.   
Chertoff liked Commander Olson, one of a very few officers in the history of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, DEVGRU, who had genuinely earned the respect of the Group’s senior enlisted leaders. Olson had fought long and hard to right the ship after a couple decades, post-9.11, of chasing low-level insurgents on five continents; he hadn’t totally succeeded in returning the unit to its original counterterrorism and hostage rescue mission, but many senior enlisted leaders had appreciated the effort. Though now they had to contend with Combatant Commanders, especially those of Africa Command and Southern Command, who had recently won a bureaucratic battle gaining greater authority to task DEVGRU on their own pet missions.   
Commander Olson smiled behind his desk, radiating power like a DARPA microwave weapon.   
Chertoff stepped into the room and looked around. He appreciated the Commander’s spartan approach to decorating. Most officers with whom Chertoff had interacted loved to pack their offices with coins, pennants, memorabilia, plaques, and awards. Commander Olson’s shelves boasted only a few cherished books, a row of training binders, and a couple framed photographs.  
“When does the Captain return?” Chertoff asked, still only one step from the doorway.  
Commander Olson stood up. “Come on in. Come on in, sir,” he said, waving Chertoff closer. “Please, have a seat.” Chertoff recognized Olson as a man who went on autopilot when dealing with mundane administrative tasks.  
“I’d like to borrow two Grough Defense contractors for a bit,” Chertoff said, getting straight to business. He approached one of two mahogany chairs in front of Olson’s desk. He stopped by the one on his right, and lightly placed the knuckle of his right ring finger on the chair’s backrest.  
“How long, specifically?” Commander Olson asked, sitting back down.  
“A couple weeks, max,” Chertoff replied. He slid his fist back and forth along the chair’s smooth mahogany. “Here are my choices,” he said, whipping a crisp file out from his navy blue trench coat and sliding it across the Commander’s desolate desk. “Former SEALs, one from Team Two, one from Team Eight.”  
The Commander picked up the file and flipped it open. Its bottom left corner brushed the rim of his coffee mug, one of two items that had dug into his desk’s inhospitable terrain. “Well, I was always on West Coat teams, but I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Commander Olson joked.   
Chertoff nodded, the humor breezing right by him. He walked towards the wall abutting the doorjamb. He moved the door slightly with the tip of his boot to get a better look at a picture hanging behind the door: a man in white shorts, sitting on the bow of an inflatable boat, binoculars in hand.   
Commander Olson’s chair creaked.  
“Earnest Will?” Chertoff asked after a moment of reflection.   
Commander Olson nodded. “Take whoever you want,” he said, placing the folder on the desk and tapping it twice with a thick index finger.   
Chertoff strode to the Commander’s desk, shook his hand, and grabbed the folder. He paused momentarily, blinked firmly over hollow eyes, and turned and walked out. The door closed softly behind him. 

The Commander stood up and let out a long sigh. He shivered, shook his head, and walked over to grab his PT bag. He had allotted a good chunk of the afternoon for physical training, and he was ready to get on with it, though he had maintained a pleasant demeanor around Chertoff. He would never dream of crossing a man of Chertoff’s caliber. Allen Dulles’ heir, Olson mused. The Commander usually changed for PT downstairs, but Chertoff’s visit had put him slightly behind schedule. He’d have to change in his office. He placed his bag on the nearest chair and began unbuttoning his camouflage blouse. He looked at the picture on the wall, his eyes—briefly—fondly recalling simpler days as an enlisted SEAL before he had received his commission. At least, simpler for him.  
He reached down and opened the bag the rest of the way; he had never fully closed it after his morning jog to work from his loft apartment in a luxury development in what was once the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. He pulled out his favorite PT shirt, which he had purchased several years ago from the PX at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan. The shirt was now a comfortable rag with many holes—good fodder for the enlisted men’s amusement. He donned the t-shirt and then pulled out a damp jock strap.   
A golden glint flew out from the spandex folds and clattered on the floor. Olson bent over and picked it up. It was a challenge coin: a golden clamshell floating above a grey warship, all raised above a dark blue field. A serrated silver banner ran below the indecipherable legend. SEPTEMBER 1988 was all Olson was able to discern above the faded motto.   
“How did he…?” Olson muttered. 

Western Virginia

“If you let two more hostages go, we’ll establish a direct line to the governor,” the lead negotiator screeched robotically through a megaphone. Thick Virginia woods eagerly gobbled up her words.  
“That’s iiiiit,” the agent in charge encouraged, his annoying words registering through the negotiator’s minute earpiece. “Offer them stuff we were already going to give them.”   
The negotiator, a ten-year veteran with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, looked around. Her backup was a kilometer to the rear. She flicked the earpiece out and stashed it in the front right pocket of her standard issue blue raid jacket. She shook out her shock of cherry brown hair and let it fall lightly over her ears. She was determined to get the job done, but at her own pace. She placed her megaphone on the gravel and walked around the makeshift barricade at the end of the driveway.  
She appraised the estate in the distance. One floor. Sprawling. Brick and clay walls with black shutters. Saplings everywhere. She nodded at the watchtower in the northwest corner, assuming someone inside had eyes on her. The land at its base seemed particularly lush beneath dawn’s kind rays.   
The gravel crunched hello under her boots. Deep down she sympathized with the locals at this compound, especially after twenty-two of them had been arrested last week, accused of ‘disturbing public order.’ She recognized her own conflict of interest: Grough, the private military corporation, on whose behalf the U.S. government was confiscating these people’s land, had run a good portion of the Bureau’s initial entry training and advanced individual training. She shivered, recalling the Pentagon spokesperson characterizing the locals as ‘squatters.’  
Her boss had cited vague intelligence reports that hostages were huddled in the southeast living room. She didn’t put much stock in those reports; she wagered the residents had neutralized the Bureau’s infrared and penetrating radar early on. That was before she had set off alone, disobeyed her boss’ orders, and unplugged from his communication attempts. One step remained: she reached into her left trouser pocket and clicked off the slim battery pack.   
“I’m going in blind,” she admitted. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  
She ducked through a row of Czech hedgehogs, nodded at the faint crescent moon, and trekked firmly towards the compound.

Washington, D.C.

Art woke up on the downstairs couch. He thought about the day ahead of him, before even moving a muscle: review some additional security measures of my own creation, check the news, make some breaky, read a bit, call a few colleagues, and then head in to Langley.   
He buttoned his trousers, which he had loosened at some point during the night. He considered embracing a sort-of vacation attitude; if the Agency was going to uproot him so abruptly from San Francisco, he was going to make the most of his time off. He stood up and strolled lazily across the cozy carpet, extra plush, into the kitchen. He sidled up to the counter and rested his fingers atop the tuning knob of his favorite old stereo, one of the few possessions he had taken with him from San Francisco.   
He nudged the selector to FM and tuned the dial in search of a good classical music channel. Commercial after commercial, slogans galore, mugged his ears, no matter where he paused the dial.

“I’m a simple man. All I need is my truck, a cold brew, and some breaded wings from…”  
“The document, verified. The vodka, our rebuttal…”  
“We… the this… the you…”  
“Our golden champ chomp wrap has ascended to new heights…”  
“Stop by any participating Fresh location and receive your free…”  
“Think crystal. Think panoramic connection from…”

Art turned down the volume all the way and huffed about the kitchen.   
“What a crock,” he muttered. He had long grappled with the poison known as advertising, to the point where this past spring he had stopped tuning in to corporate news media. It had been a relief, but also a turning point. Aside from obnoxious billboards and the occasional ad on video streaming services, which he would mute, he was more or less free from advertising.  
The clarity of advertising’s harm struck him aside the head like an M-16 buttstock: Advertising was designed to push you towards consumption. Every ad leveraged psychology so you were no longer buying to satisfy your basic needs, you were buying to satisfy capitalists’ greed. Advertising created your desires so you’d purchase more goods; corporations wanted you unhappy so that you’d purchase the product that they pitched as the solution to your woes.  
“What a way to start the day,” Art griped.   
He lapped the kitchen island, returned to the radio, and turned the volume up. The advertisements continued, causing Art to seethe more. Consumerism had helped sedate people’s consciousness. Citizens morphed into consumers, homes into display cases. Wall Street gave consumers just enough of the pie so that they’d keep on consuming.  
Art wiped his brow on the back of his forearm. With an ashy knuckle, he tuned the dial in search of 89.7. “Free radio, free radio…” he mumbled. He was looking for free radio enthusiasts. He used to listen to their illegal broadcasts during his time as a grad student at Georgetown. The speakers crackled, telling him he was getting close. He slowed down and rolled the knob in the other direction.  
“Thanks, Ma,” he whispered, appreciating how his parents had always instructed him to seek out diverse opinions. He recalled the incisive style of journalism and occasional hijinks he had heard on 89.7. He had enjoyed their perspective and in-depth coverage, even though he had disagreed with some of their editorializing. A dexterous adjustment of the knob landed him on a kind voice.

D.C. special operations forces have raided three separate locations in the Central African Republic. Eight civilians are dead across the Chinko Nature Reserve. This comes on the heels of a missile attack that killed three yesterday in the coastal town of Faza, Kenya. The unidentified UAV took off from Chabelley Airfield according to a two separate journalistic monitoring groups.   
AimPoint Chemicals has just merged with Dieselarm Corporation. The Federal Trade Commission is expected to rubber stamp the deal this week. This corporation will now control roughly 81% of your food, seeds, and pesticides. We anticipate the people in Latin America and Africa to be hit hardest by this merger, as politicians across the board will be even more susceptible to industry pressure in the form of campaign finance—legalized bribery—brought to bear by this new agro-giant.

Art stared out the kitchen window at the apple tree out back, digesting the news from 89.7 The apple tree looked in even worse shape than last night. The nagging sense in the back of his head widened. He glanced down at the toaster on the kitchen counter and then to the radio.

According to documents recently leaked to DemocracyNow!, an undisclosed U.S.-based private equity firm—presumably Grough Capital—has purchased the Israeli private intelligence group, Caragrip. The group is best known for its eponymous facial recognition technology, which has been sold to multiple agencies within the so-called U.S. Intelligence Community.   
Following up on our ongoing investigation into capitalist pollution, we report that the amount of plastic waste polluting our only planet has passed 31 billion metric tons. Scientists reported this figure on Tuesday in the online peer-reviewed publication known as Science Future. Many humans still use single-use plastics—like coffee cups, straws, stirrers, food packaging, and bottles. As a society, the United States has yet to come to grips with the environmental impact of such pollution. For now, scientists assert that our entire marine food chain is riddled with plastic pollution. Leading environmental organizations warn against consuming any form of seafood. 

Art turned down the volume.   
“Thanks, Pop.” His cheeks lit up in admiration for his father. An intense smile gained control of his face. “I just wish I had your patience.” Remembering his father’s placid demeanor and seemingly endless energy, he gazed out the kitchen window and admired the apple tree’s frail branches. He estimated the tree to be about seven years old by ball-parking its current height and comparing that number to the species’ maximum expected height. His mom had taught him that trick.  
His fingers back on the radio, Art turned up the volume and roamed the dial. 99.5, Public Radio Nation, came in crisply. Although Public Radio marketed itself as the intellectual choice, Art had a difficult time distinguishing their broadcasts from government literature.   
He listened as he piddled around the kitchen. He stuck his head into the fridge, and pulled out some tofu and a spicy red sauce. He searched the cupboards for a skillet, sliding it onto the burner and adding a little olive oil. He started chopping some garlic. His mind roamed. After a few minutes, he dumped the cold tofu into the skillet and added a little of the garlic. A pinch of salt and pepper followed. 

“…ting from Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, is our own Lori Shaprio. Lori?”   
“Thanks, Michelle. Most of us take our t-shirts for granted, but not these brave men and women. Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronald Lovecraft tells us about a recent challenge he overcame as a physical fitness leader.”  
“Like any other military dress, our PT uniform represents what the person wearing it stands for,” Senior Chief Lovecraft said, his voice oddly airy.   
Lori recounted, “Assessing others’ fitness and maintaining rigorous standards is a cornerstone of U.S. Navy culture.”  
Being a physical fitness leader is a huge additional duty to assume, Senior Chief Lovecraft tells us.

Art shed his boots. His big toes helped ease his feet out of the opposite socks. He looked back into the fridge, scrounging for more ingredients.   
“Dice up the lemons, really fine,” he whispered to himself. He pulled out a lemon and a faded piece of ginger. He wondered who had lived here before he came to town.

“But Petty Officer Lovecraft and his fellow service members encountered a problem: U.S. AFRICOM headquarters had not allocated sufficient funds to purchase unique t-shirts for all twenty-two new fitness leaders at the installation,” Lori explained. “Senior Chief Lovecraft describes the situation.”

Art took his time cutting the lemon, pausing occasionally to stir the skillet. He put the lemon slices on top of the tofu, and then returned his attention to the garlic and the ginger.

“First we reached out to the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation office, but they had no authority.” Petty Officer Lovecraft said. “They were very polite, but it was a dead end.”  
“Despite the obstacles, Lovecraft and his peers persevered,” Lori informed the Public Radio listeners.

Art let the tofu brown for about six minutes and then unleashed the garlic and ginger into the skillet.  
“Layers of flavor, my friend,” Art said, laughing at his silly commentary. 

“We were determined,” Petty Officer Lovecraft affirmed. “We were going to get the shirts, come hell or high water. So we turned to the Joint Senior Enlisted Council. They convene once a month to find ways to improve morale across the installation. They were very helpful.”  
Lori narrated, “The Joint Senior Enlisted Council contacted the office of the senior enlisted leader at the camp.”   
“They showed us what leadership really means,” Petty Officer Lovecraft extolled. “The senior enlisted leader delegated the task to his subordinates at higher headquarters, who eventually allocated enough funds to cover the cost of the shirts.”  
“And how did that make you feel?” Lori asked.   
“Ecstatic.”  
Lori narrated, “The arrival of these new t-shirts has brought a wonderful sense of recognition to selfless soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen.”  
Stock sounds of diverse wildlife floated from the boombox’s speakers.  
“And every little bit helps as our service members put their lives on the line every day to counter transnational threats across the African continent. Lori Shapiro, with Public Radio Nation.”

Art turned the volume down to a murmur. The simmering of the skillet overtook the sound coming from the radio. He stared at his other favorite possession—a small stack of books he had brought with him from the Bay Area. They sat quietly, bookended by the side of the fridge and a jet-black blender. The silver toaster gleamed to the left of the blender. Art leaned back, hips against the sink. His brain itched. The nagging sensation had spread. He scanned the kitchen, from left to right: window, stove, toaster, blender, books, fridge. His eyes came to rest on some of the titles within his favorite possession: Knightley’s The First Casualty and Halberstam’s Ho.  
He froze. A funny feeling—like a squirrel dancing to and fro—tickled this hackles, but he pushed it aside as he slid across the kitchen floor. He reached out and angled the blinds upwards with one smart twist. He walked over to the mat and slipped on his sneakers.  
He stepped back and pulled out a kitchen drawer. He removed a phonebook and a stack of pennies from the drawer, exposing a smooth, polished pine bottom. The false bottom had taken him less than ten minutes to install when he had first arrived. He buttressed his pinky finger against the interior corner of the drawer and pressed down. An inaudible bump told him the lock on the false bottom was now deactivated. He placed the smooth pine bottom on the countertop.  
Art looked around the kitchen. All was quiet, though his hackles still tickled. No, now they singed. He removed a compact black radio from the depths of the drawer. He reminded himself to take it slow this morning. Enjoy the day off. The radio felt light in his hands. He set it down on the kitchen island. A pistol looked up at him from the drawer. So did a miniature bug sweeper, known in the industry as a mobile countermeasure device. He walked over to the stove, turned off the burner, and returned to the drawer.   
He examined the small black brick of a radio. The interface was barely distinguishable. He pressed a knob on the right-hand side. An earpiece popped out along the bottom of the device. He pulled at the earpiece’s cord, careful to pull in accordance with the tension. He fit the earpiece around his lobe and hunched over the table slightly. He quickly—too quickly for his mood—lifted a small notepad from his breast pocket and activated the radio with the thumb on his other hand.  
A message began.

.- .-- .- .. -  
.. -. ... - .-. ..- -.-. - .. --- -. ...

The full message repeated three times. Art took swift notes. At the beginning of the fourth pass, a female voice started reciting numbers. Art found inexplicable comfort in her east Budapest accent. He was fairly sure that the numbers she recited were meaningless, a mere random set designed to lead certain listeners astray. After enjoying her mellifluous tones for a few moments, Art popped out the earpiece and placed it on the marble countertop with a clop of his hand.   
“Hmmm.” He frowned. Hopping down from his stool, he untangled the cord from a button on his shirt.   
He scratched the back of his neck, although he knew it wouldn’t rid him of the eerie sensation that had been plaguing him. He scanned the kitchen once more. Nothing.  
He returned the handheld radio to the drawer, and kept the drawer open. He pivoted and looked out the window. He stood on his tiptoes in order to better angle his vision through the blinds.  
In his mind, Art projected a Morse code tree over the apple tree as he stared through the bay window. Dawn cast a starry glow over the branches. Something was amiss. He sat down on a steel step stool, a good thinking chair.   
The refrigerator turned on with a plink and a hum. He turned and looked at the fridge and then the toaster.   
Though a relative novice compared to some within the Clandestine Service’s counterintelligence division, Art still had been reared within their insular subculture. Suspicious of all, his movements and thoughts were garbed in innate deception. Deceit was everywhere. He discretely palmed the bug sweeper, removed it from the drawer, and took a lap of the kitchen. The device indicated the presence of two bugs within a four-meter radius. The toaster. Someone had bugged the house. And recently. They would have known he’d sweep it when he first arrived.  
An escape plan washed over him like the exhaust from an F101 turbofan. His mind worked rapidly. Wary of visual monitoring in addition to the certainty of audio bugs, he slowly slid his hand down to his knee. He let it linger there for a moment. He rolled his neck, letting loose a few kinks. He sat up straighter and rolled his neck again. He hopped off the stool, folded it up, and leaned it against the cabinet closest to the back door.   
Art walked over to the sink and casually reached for the dishtowel hanging to the right of the nearest cupboard. He daubed the dishtowel with some hand soap and began scrubbing the surrounding surfaces. Visibly dismayed at the ineffectiveness of the cleaner, Art crouched down and opened the cupboard under the sink. He placed a few cleaning supplies on the ledge above him, took a deep breath, and snatched his emergency miniature rucksack.  
He sprang up, ruck in hand, and took one step to the open drawer. He grabbed the pistol—Ruger SP101, five shot, steel, .38 special—and flew out the back door.


	4. Chapter 4

Washington, D.C.

Images of the early morning runs at Camp Peary returned to Art as he sunk into a decent cardio rhythm, heading northeast on Potomac Avenue. He had been one of the few trainees who had enjoyed getting up early at The Farm. Most hadn’t pushed themselves, content instead on just passing the minimum qualifying times. He tried to muster a smile; he was happy to be running again, but he wished it were under better circumstances. He knew very well that he was facing forces with no morals and nearly unlimited resources. But why him?  
Was he being paranoid? He took a moment to debate the evidence. No, he determined. He was being cautious, not paranoid. He admonished himself for not noticing the anomalies sooner. He had spent his brief counterintelligence career keeping his eyes peeled, noticing the little details of life, and tabulating the information; a toaster out of place, an over-groomed living room carpet, and the Agency’s strange behavior—recalling him immediately to the east coast only to stick him in what amounted to little more than a safehouse—spelled trouble. He should have picked up on it earlier. “Damn,” he grunted, mid-stride.  
Through dawn’s generous mist, a verdant cemetery cropped up to his right. In the distance he eyed a possible entrance at the intersection with 18th Street. Extending his stride, Art hopped a low stone wall and landed softly inside the cemetery. He ducked down and tucked himself against the cool sandstone, filling his lungs with a deep pull of smoggy air. He knew he was still too close to his home base. He had to get out. He had to lie low. Still crouching, Art reached out and patted the ground with his palm. The grass was soft, tender, and damp. He raised his hand and grazed the cool dew along the back of his neck. Long ago he had learned to appreciate little pleasures amid difficult scenarios.   
The sudden downwash of a helicopter caused Art to bolt upright. He took off. A path split the plots of gravestones down the middle. He took it head on. He strained to see the boulevard beyond the cemetery, but kept his attention mostly on landing sure footfalls in the dim light. A leaf of the Heritage Gazette blew across his path.   
He prioritized his needs: water and temporary shelter. A quaint chapel blurred by in his peripheral. He appreciated the path more and more with each stride. His small rucksack patted his back firmly, barely sliding throughout the violent pace. As a spotlight flooded his path with broad sweeps, a thought struck him: J. Edgar Hoover was buried somewhere in this cemetery. Art let out a nervous laugh, picked up the pace, and entered a small grove on the south side of the cemetery.   
He slunk behind a large maple tree as a helicopter swooped past, the spotlight angling sharply beneath. Art looked up, peering around the bark. He recognized the distinct shape. It was an MH-6, a fan favorite of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and other tactical units. Originally conceived as a genuine hostage rescue force, HRT had in recent years morphed into an all-purpose Gestapo, used to persecute those who carried out anti-corporate crime as well as revolutionary actions.  
Art looked southeast through the patch of woods towards the boulevard. He strained to slow his breathing and inhale deeply, despite the pollution. He knew hiding behind the tree was pointless; even the most basic forward-looking infrared would be capable of spotting him in pitch-blackness. They’ll try to use the spotlight to flush me out, he warned himself. After gulping one more breath, Art sprinted through the grove and onto the boulevard. The MH-6 looped around as he crossed multiple wide lanes. Honks of concern and anger roared. He kept to the far-side treeline, eying the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail in the distance as he headed northeast.   
Exhaustion peppered his vision. Good thing he had a decent meal last night. He skidded on a plastic bottle as he tried his best to stay upright. Trash and other discarded resources overflowed along the pathway, causing him to spend most of his effort stepping around them instead of tracking the helicopter above. His ears told him it was making frequent low passes, but had yet to descend fully. He wondered how many men were aboard. What were they carrying? Were private mercenaries involved? He merged onto the Riverwalk Trail, stumbled, and caught himself mid-stride. His palms scraped the ground, but he was able to recover and return upright.  
He ran and ran. Thoughts stirred, though Art did his best to suppress them for the time being. Were his pursuers from Special Operation Command’s National Capital Region branch? SOCOM NCR had operated in Washington, D.C., northeast Virginia, and parts of Maryland for over a decade now. Any protections designed to keep U.S. military forces out of domestic politics and citizens’ private lives had been shredded long ago in the name of ‘national security.’  
The helicopter’s floodlight winked out as dawn’s grip took full hold.  
Art looked left. Amid the morning haze, nature was reclaiming a vast abandoned parking lot. He longed to stop, pry up some blacktop, and help the ground breathe. The sound of a different set of helicopter rotors beat at his ears from the southeast. He ran faster, pushing himself to reach resting point: the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge, a hundred meters or so to the north. He ran and ran, at one point accidentally synching his feet with every fourth downbeat of the blades’ rotation.   
A shot rang out, but he saw no ejecta in front of him.   
Were they funneling him where they wanted? Was he falling for it? His lungs burned. He reprimanded himself for feeling joy at running just moments ago.  
The sun eked higher over the horizon to Art’s east, giving him a welcoming salute before he skidded to a stop beneath the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. Did they have a device that could see through the steel and concrete of this classic bridge? Grimacing, Art scampered on all fours towards the eaves. It occurred to him that his pain was relatively minor compared to others D.C. had pursued. His scrapes and bruises were nothing next to the charred bodies, stateside and abroad. Some might even say the charred bodies had gotten off easy. They never felt the terror of a three AM home invasion by élite pawns of D.C. before point blank assassinations ended their lives early. His current ordeal was forcing him to reconcile with history, harder than he had ever done before. But such thoughts gouged. Too uncomfortable. Art dismissed their presence. Wrong place, wrong time. He stopped at the top of the incline in the eaves under the bridge.   
Clinging to the cold steel beams, he tried to slow his breathing, but his panting remained steady, his limbs trembling. He adjusted his position, pressing his hands against the inside of the concrete above him. He stood up a bit and allowed his rucksack to brush snugly against the concrete lip behind him. He prioritized once more: water and shelter. “Then I figured out why they’re after me. Then I figured out what to do about it.” The concrete and steel around him dampened the sounds of helicopter rotors. Art couldn’t tell if they were flying away or merely circling around.   
He couldn’t help but laugh as irony hit him hard. Whitney Young, namesake of the bridge above, had been subjected to government surveillance. COunter INTELligence PROgram had left no restless stone or disgruntled pebble unturned. Art had caught rumors that COINTELPRO had most recently infiltrated and shredded a popular racial justice movement, but he had been unable to verify this, due to his extended time away from Langley and the centers of power in the greater D.C. area. Art permitted himself to put government overreach in context. FBI and CIA had long assaulted the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and residents alike. This aggression, uninterrupted since at least the National Security Act of 1947, still reigned supreme as part of the overall surveillance state.   
Art shook these thoughts away as a car zipped by overhead. Tires screeched. Boots on the ground?! Art fretted.  
He willed himself to focus. An evasion plan was forming. He shuffled, nearly swinging from the beams above, to the edge of the bridge. The soles of his sneakers slid on the sand and debris on the slope as he made his way north. He peered out from under the bridge. The sky glowed a gorgeous teal blue, and the morning sun was climbing steadily.   
West, Art told himself. West.   
Under the lip of the bridge, Art steadied himself, swung his rucksack off of one shoulder, and opened it up in front of him. He reached into its folds and removed the pistol he had taken from the hidden drawer back at his temporary home. He checked the safety and then tucked the pistol into his waistband. He zipped up the rucksack, re-shouldered it, and took one last look around him. Reaching down to retie his sneakers, he cleared his throat and swallowed a bit of gluey phlegm. He tied the final knot on his laces tightly.   
Go! He scrambled up the dewy embankment, headed towards the street above, thankful for the neglected land; the kind weeds provided a strong grip as he clambered on all fours.   
A grey stadium loomed large like a Roman ruin as Art surged over the berm. He ran towards it. In three strides he was across the desolate C Street and into the island in the middle of the road. Wild grass and hardy weeds were doing their best to retake the patch. They longed for one more trip around the sun in order to fully usurp man’s oppressive concrete.   
No jackboots to be seen.  
Eying the stadium’s upper deck and the walkways for hidden sentries or snipers, Art slowed down to a jog. He recognized he couldn’t sustain an all-out sprint. A steady pace brought him around to the north end of the stadium.   
“I knew it,” Art said to the morning air, locking his eyes on the massive wall growling at him from a distance. He guessed it was somewhere along 18th or 19th Street, realizing he hadn’t heard the helicopters in what seemed like several minutes. “It’s all about containing me,” he speculated. “This phase, at least.”  
He jogged west. Parking lot gave way to road, grass, and more parking lots. He burst through a final set of trees, snarling like a feral jungle cat. Oddly, the wall loomed much larger on this side of the slum, the eastern side. A footpath ran north-south about three meters from the wall, but Art stayed much closer. He kept a firm pace, turning north and patiently prodding the façade for weaknesses. Reinforced concrete. He ran his palm over the cool surface. A few chunks were missing here and there. The morning sun, low on the horizon through the nearby trees, dazzled the otherwise pale surface of the wall.  
He wondered if the footpath to his right was still used regularly. Probably, he conjectured, looking at how worn it was.   
A faint buzz struck his right ear. He turned to see a slim helicopter rising from within the stadium.   
In contrast to the bubbly MH-6 that had chased him earlier, this helicopter was thin, long, and armed to the teeth. Even from a distance, Art could see the rocket pods attached to hulking arms that extended from the fuselage like a ’roided out pipsqueak. He even spied a rotary cannon dangling from beneath the cabin like an inverted scorpion’s telson.   
“Oh, shit,” Art whispered to himself. Before the final consonant had left his lips, Art was in a full-on sprint.   
He rounded the bend; his momentum taking him on a wider arc that nearly touched the footpath to his right. The slim chopper zipped up behind him in the time it took Art to run eight paces. In the dew ahead of him, Art saw his salvation: rubble spilled forth from the wall like a rocky hernia. The gash reminded him of a scene he had seen years ago of Palestinian youth taking sledgehammers to Israel’s apartheid wall. The faint buzz in his ears had morphed into a blistery whine of brutal blades. Art dug deeper and leaned into the run. The familiar burn of exhausted lungs arrived, but Art once again forced himself to enjoy the sensation. Madness.  
A staccato ripped open the air and stabbed at the dirt in front of him. Art recognized the sound of the attack helicopter’s M230 chain gun from an afternoon familiarization course he had taken at Camp Peary.   
Another rapid burst scarred the air and the ground. Clods of whipped dirt nipped at his heels. Thirty-millimeter casings fell from the attack helicopter like brass tears.   
Jesus Christ! He must’ve really been onto something! But Art had no time to process events. A vice tore at his right thigh, tripping him. He landed hard in a storm of dirt, as the M230 chain gun cleaved another gash across the ground in front of him. Art knew he’d lucked out with this cramp. Another near miss wouldn’t be in the cards. He looked up. Shredded concrete spewed forth from the wall, mere paces away. The attack helicopter was buzzing back around, adjusting and steadying for the kill shot. Straining against all the pain in his leg, lungs, and head, Art summoned the remainder of his energy and launched himself through the gap in the wall. It was a harsh angle. His right shoulder smacked against the inner portion of the jagged opening, redirecting him and spinning him onto his back. The attack helicopter unleashed its final scathe just as Art’s limp body clopped to the ground. His consciousness collapsed.

Groton, Connecticut

Rear Admiral Jonathan Worrell stood in front of the mirror, appraising his service dress blues. He liked this uniform. It conveyed tradition and elegance. Cold air from the open window to the right of his dresser fortified his freshly shaved face. He tightened the knot on his tie. A lone bulb beneath a beige lampshade provided him with all the light he needed.   
Britt rolled over in the bed behind him. She was used to his morning routine and the cold that inevitably came with it, and today the cold suited her just fine.   
“I can’t believe you,” she said frostily.   
Admiral Worrell opened the top drawer of his dresser and removed a black silk cloth. He dusted off the two stars on each shoulder and returned the cloth to the drawer.   
“You knew they could do this?” she asked.  
Admiral Worrell looked at his wife in the mirror. He returned his attention to adjusting the white sleeve beneath his nearly black coat.  
“Answer me.” Her tone was hoarse.  
“No,” he said simply.   
“No?”  
“No. I am a submarine officer. I am not familiar with the capabilities of the surveillance state.”  
“The privatized surveillance state,” Britt corrected. “Right?”  
Admiral Worrell removed a lint roller from the top drawer and began rolling it over his right coat sleeve.  
“Right?!” his wife yelled.  
“That is correct, my dear.”  
Britt threw off the quilt and stomped across the hallway to the bathroom.   
Admiral Worrell stared at himself in the mirror. My, he had aged. He placed the lint roller on the dresser, smoothed his coat lapels, and then picked up the roller with his right hand. He began de-linting his left sleeve now. He rolled slower this time.   
He hummed, “Bless those at home who wait and pray… for their return by night or day.”  
The toilet flushed across the hall. The faucet ran briefly. The old pipes shook as Britt turned off the tap.   
“What do we know?” she asked in a controlled voice as she entered the room. She dove back beneath the covers.   
“I intend to find out.”  
“Oh, you’re a big help. The Admiral doesn’t know. Big surprise.”  
“I know your gubernatorial campaign might be affected.”  
“My campaign?!” Britt flew out of bed. She stalked over to the dresser. “Tell me!”   
“I don’t know, dear. Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is we’ve been hacked. We need to prepare for the worse.”   
“How do we know that?!”   
“You said it yourself. Someone has logged into your email account from a different IP address.” Evasive eyes refocused on his tie.  
“Maybe that’s a glitch. A god damn, damn-it-to-hell, Silicon Valley glitch.” Britt walked to the closet, its doors already open. She dropped her robe.   
“Maybe,” Admiral Worrell echoed.  
Within seconds Britt was in jeans and a turtleneck. “Who are they?” She slammed the closet’s sliding door, which promptly bounced off the jamb and slid open half a meter. “I mean, who would do this?”  
“I will find out.”  
“You knew they could do this,” she accused in a guttural tenor.  
“I don’t know who is behind this!” he snapped. Decades of practiced calm had been shattered. He could do fast attack deployment. He could go for months on a boat with no personal space other than his rack. He could cram for quals between shifts and stay awake for over a day. He could operate in shallow and deep water, deal with a grouchy quartermaster, help tap underwater cables, detect mines, and deploy SEAL delivery vehicles. But a war corporation hacking his family… That was enough to make anyone snap.  
“We’ve been over this. I don’t know what private intelligence corporations are capable of. And I’d venture to say that no single person on the face of the Earth knows, either.”  
“What are we going to do?” She walked behind him.  
“Sit down, Britt,” the Admiral pleaded. “There’s something you need to hear.”  
And so Rear Admiral Jonathan Worrell began telling his wife about his historic alliance with the CEO of Grough Defense, one of the great bribery scandals in U.S. Navy history. 

Washington, D.C.

Two questions pounded Art’s head as he awoke. Is my right shoulder dislocated? And why didn’t the helicopter follow me in here?   
Dirt, chalky dust, and bits of concrete covered his body. He coughed repeatedly as he wiggled onto his left side with a little help from his right heel. He came eye to eye with a lively worm in the patchy grass.  
He assessed the pain in his shoulder. He tried to rotate it, but quickly reconsidered. Giving himself a few minutes, Art closed his eyes and felt out his body. After a few tests, he determined that the pain was tolerable as long as he kept his right arm fairly still. He looked up through an intense wince. The sun was high. Almost noon.  
Art stood up slowly and looked around. Shiny train tracks cut through the main boulevard to the right, but everything else looked older and at rest. The rest that only came with time. The roads were torn up; grass and shrubs dominated the concrete and asphalt in most places.  
Determined to walk toward the train tracks, Art put one foot in front of the other. His broken laces dragged alongside his shoes, like septic snakes.   
He reached for the pistol he had tucked into his waistband. He felt nothing but damp skin behind dirty belt loops. He wanted to scream at his foolishness—where had he lost the pistol?—but prudence dictated that all energy should be conserved. He stewed. His head rattled and his shoulder pounded every time his soles connected with the ground. Amid the mental clutter, a thought struck him: There’s no litter here. That thought stayed with him as he marched, slow strides and weary eyes, along the tracks.   
The sun baked his head. So this was the slum that D.C. had walled in, the other side of which he saw yesterday. Though his head ached every time he lifted it a few centimeters, he managed to take in more of his surroundings: dilapidated buildings neatly patched; tidy curbs; a complete absence of trash receptacles; and no people, yet many upper floor windows were open. Colorful veins of fresh laundry along tight clotheslines linked the buildings. Cisterns of all shapes dotted front stoops. Saplings sprouted from the center of street lanes; the residents had reclaimed the streets.   
After a couple of blocks Art began to notice a pattern. Pushcarts and what looked like rickshaws were parked in front of most buildings. Each cart or rickshaw differed from the next, as though personalized with the care of a sculptor and the patience of a mother. Despite the wide variation among the carts, all were built tough and sturdy. Brackets and braces reinforced corners and lines of stress. Ropes and light chains buttressed and ensured redundant safety.   
His legs told him to rest, but he pushed on. Foot over foot, he concentrated. The sun climbed to its peak overhead. Art spied a watering can on one stoop. He scooped it up, mid-stride with a cupped hand, and drank straight from the lip. Warm refreshment, a waterfall on his chin, bathed his chest. He set down the watering can, empty, one block from its home, his gait uninterrupted. In the distance Art recognized the outline of a basketball court, perhaps the one he had caught sight of yesterday. His weary mind felt like cool syrup had invaded his temples.   
He trudged on.   
“I’m going to need a rest,” he whispered through cracked lips as he lifted the latch on the gate and stepped into the basketball courts. Even though it was daytime, the overhead lights started lighting up—slowly, at first, but they soon gained power.  
From the slightly elevated courts, he took in the adjacent, craggy lagoon he had glimpsed through the fence the day before. It gave off a man-made impermanence, stretching south and east for meter after jagged meter. Floating in the middle of the lagoon were several small islands. Beneath each clung nets holding plastic bottles around which roots and biomass took hold.  
Leery of the unnecessary light, Art broke his gaze and wandered around the court to a shed on the south side. He patted his shoulder like it was a tranquil puppy. The shed was open. With his free hand, he immobilized his arm between his shirt and waistband. He’d need a sling soon.   
“Smart city, my ass,” he mumbled as he closed the shed door behind him. He knew his mocking attitude didn’t help, but U.S. Congress did deserve his scorn. They prioritized superficial projects, like this basketball court with kinetic tiles powering floodlights, while simultaneously neglecting the most essential public services and nature’s basic requirements.  
Several minutes passed until Art’s eyes adjusted. He blinked hard. He coughed. He assessed the situation. Nap now. Heal.

Washington, D.C.

“Sir,” rumbled a Grough mercenary with blond hair cropped high and tight, descending the broad staircase of the temporary residence the Agency had provided Art. The mercenary’s customized MP5 submachine gun clacked tightly against his torso.  
Chertoff looked up from prodding Art’s possessions with a pencil. Clothing, books, papers, and banknotes were aligned neatly on the center island in the kitchen.  
The mercenary walked into the kitchen, holding out his hands. “We found these in a bar of soap.”   
“Place it here,” Chertoff directed.   
“Roger.” The mercenary stepped forward, walking past the cold skillet atop the stove, and gently set down the evidence.  
Chertoff donned a fresh pair of sterile gloves, stashing his old ones in the folds of his navy blue trench coat. “Next time, tell the technicians and let them extract it,” he ordered. He looked down at the newly arrived evidence, which he had planted earlier in the day.  
The mercenary nodded firmly and walked away. A litter of contractors from various agencies followed him.  
Chertoff turned to his Language Officer. “Thoughts?”   
The Language Officer, a twelve-year intelligence industry veteran, perused the written material carefully. Mandarin.  
“What’s it say?” Chertoff asked his Language Officer.   
The Language Officer picked up two small scraps. They settled, anachronistic against the unnatural polymer of his glove.  
“Codebooks, it looks like. Lists of names with corresponding designations.”   
A branch of the apple tree outside scratched the kitchen window lightly.  
A Grough mercenary with black hair in a bowl cut walked to the kitchen door, opened it, and relieved a plain-clothes sentry. The mercenary stood guard with a frozen mien. The plain-clothes official he had relieved then descended the steps and began patrolling the yard, never walking the same pattern more than once.   
“Those guys are great,” the Language Officer said. “The DEVGRU guys too. They’ll lie to any investigator’s face, as long as the lie protects the team. Once I was with them in—”  
“Please,” Chertoff stated. The word rendered the Language Officer mute. The LO swallowed hard, his facial expression acknowledging he had spoken truths—truths that his boss knew, truths that were to be appreciated in concealment not disclosure.  
“How long do you think this guy Art has been a traitor?” the LO asked, scrounging to recompose his demeanor.   
“All traitors must pay,” Chertoff rumbled.   
A forensic technician entered the kitchen from the living room and began rearranging the bank notes into four piles on the kitchen island.  
Chertoff looked sternly at the stacks—U.S. dollars, Euros, Renminbi—then followed the best acting advice he’d ever received: less is more. He nodded slightly, shifted his jaw, and said, “I see.” 

Washington, D.C. – The Slum

Waking up like he had just surfaced from a fifty-yard underwater swim, Art gasped again and again. He paced his breaths, aligning his deep inhales with the cadence of a steady drip that permeated his shed. The air felt cooler and a little cleaner here. Cooler air. Nighttime. A thin sheet of water rose to meet his back and right elbow.   
Who had ordered that helicopter? Why were they after him?  
But then a different thought rang inside his head: recalling what the woman in the blue dress had told him yesterday, he realized that the carts parked in front of most buildings in the slum were for disposing of D.C.’s discarded resources. Curious, he concluded amid the luxury of the pause.   
Think, man, think! he reprimanded himself, refocusing. Who is after me? And why? I closed up shop in San Francisco. It took me no time to rack and stack the paintings, easels, and boxes. Slept very little on the red-eye, San Francisco International Airport to Dulles International. Went straight to the Library of Congress, tried to visit the park and the English language center, met the woman in the blue dress, headed to the townhouse, caught a cat nap, and then walked to the bar. Decent meal, walked home, crashed downstairs on the couch. Woke up, radio, pieced together the surveillance, and fled. What am I missing? Who did I run afoul of? Thinker earlier. Think work.   
Footfalls on concrete jarred Art from his recollections. He looked left. Dim shapes played the light keys between the shed’s dark, wooden planks. He shifted slightly. The thin sheet of water soaked his back.  
“Bull. Bullshit,” a voice graveled.   
Art heard a squeak followed by a hollow, wooden dink. A sneaker kicking a rock, scuffing asphalt. He looked down at his makeshift bedding—a tarp and some newspapers. He knew he’d have to make a little noise if he were to extricate himself successfully.  
“We should head back,” a lighter voice suggested. “Stay in tune with the solar cycle.”  
They didn’t sound like D.C.’s enforcers or goons, Art observed, but he couldn’t take any chances.   
Art inhaled deeply and rolled slowly onto his right side. Waves of nausea pummeled him. He swallowed the noise of a dry-heave. With a thumb and forefinger, he lifted up the first layer of newspapers. They glided softly to the damp shed floor.   
The shapes moved to the front of the shed, a meter from his feet.  
Art inhaled once more. He pinched the nearest fold of tarp and eased it off his legs. It rose softly. He set it down as best he could, but a thick layer of water resting atop shifted and played the crumpled tarp like a toddler pounding on a high chair.   
The shed door bounced back and forth. They’re coming in, Art thought, bracing his body and mind.  
“It’s a jimmy lock,” the stony voice said. “You gotta push up and then crank it down.”   
Art hopped up in one quick pop, hoping the rattling doors would mask the noise of his swift movement.   
The shed doors rattled louder.   
“Give me that,” the stony voice said.   
CLICK.   
The right door opened and a modest shape stepped in. Art sprang at the first shape launching the bottom of his left palm into the shape’s jaw. In any other circumstance the crunchy gargle of teeth would have caused Art to wince. Pushing off with the full force of his leg muscles, Art punched the second shape directly in the testicles. Two shapes, temporarily debilitated.   
Art commanded himself: Run!  
A purplish dusk smeared his vision as he ran from the lights of the basketball court. Through the open gate, he tumbled onto the broad boulevard, slalomed among the saplings, and collected himself mid-stride. He took in his surroundings with the acuity of a startled hare. Neat, damp, raw, desolate, quiet. All good. He ran, feeling lopsided due to the lingering cramp in his right thigh. His shoulder beat with each step.   
He looked down. He was running in the center of the rail tracks. He moved to his right, off the tracks, and did his best to stay closer to the buildings. He lengthened his stride to align with the squares of concrete every few meters.   
Huffing and puffing, his heartbeat neared a steady rhythm.   
No helicopter, but—  
His thoughts shuddered as a squeal echoed again and again off the surrounding buildings. Higher and higher the pitch reverberated.   
Art glanced behind him. The still, damp air held his pursuers, like fish frozen in an iceberg. They were riding a rail cart, pumping away and gliding smoothly on the tracks.   
Art turned forward and dug deep. 

Chevy Chase, Maryland

“You’re taking the two-door, Mrs. Stockton?” the babysitter asked from the kitchen as Donna Stockton plucked the keys to the coup off the rack and followed her husband Richard into the adjoining garage.   
“Yes, indeed!” Richard yelled back into the house. Donna tossed him the keys.  
The babysitter walked up behind young Michael and grabbed him lightly, letting out a monster’s roar. Her long brown hair fell over the boy’s face. He screamed with delight. “Have fun!” she said to Michael’s parents.   
“We will,” Donna replied, opening the driver’s side door for her husband. Her posterior bumped up against the recycling bin. Her husband sat down. She deked around the door and climbed across her husband’s lap. She wiggled down into the passenger’s seat and buckled in.  
Her husband leaned over and kissed her. “We always have fun on date night.” He started the engine and checked a knob on the dashboard, making sure the convertible top was fully stowed and secured.  
“Say ‘bye’!” the babysitter told Michael as they waved from the doorway.   
Richard threw the coup in reverse and backed out of the garage speedily. Donna tsked disapproval at the excessive speed as they zipped past the old-growth hickory dominating the front yard.   
“Did you charge the batteries?” he asked, as he threw the stick into first gear and accelerated drove down the leafy driveway.   
She leaned over, grabbed his thigh, and kissed him tenderly on the neck. “Of course, Richie. Did you rake the yard today?”   
“I recently upped the wattage,” Richard said, avoiding her question.   
“I saw.” She slid her hand up towards his groin.  
“I think our equipment is over the kilometer radius now,” he boasted.   
Her hand arched back over his thigh and fell into the center console. She raised the faux-leather arm guard and flicked a switch concealed beneath. A discrete light blinked green.   
“Not yet,” Richard said.   
The mobile device interceptor purred gently in the trunk.   
“Screw you and your ‘not yet,’” Donna said playfully, biting down on her husband’s fuzzy earlobe. He accelerated. He grinned; she was excited for their evening’s mission.   
The night’s silence faded as they drove into town, Richard reviewing some of their recent successes.  
“No,” Donna corrected, eyeing the street signs. “Take Connecticut Ave.”  
Richard slowed down and took the corner sharply. “Are we really much better though?” he asked.  
“Much better than…?”   
“Much better than the early Russian immigrants,” Richard pondered aloud.  
Donna rolled her eyes. “Don’t ruin date night.”  
“No, hear me out,” Richard said, sensing the eye roll without looking. “The ones in the eighteen hundreds, packed into putrid conditions below decks—”  
“Rife with disease,” Donna added.   
“Only to live a life of toil and misery once immigrated,” Richard concluded solemnly.   
“How are we not better off?” Donna asked, accustomed to her husband’s deep stretches of thoughtful despondency. She knew he could be a pensive man, quite different from the gregarious personality he put on in the company of peers and friends.   
“Shit,” Richard said, used to people not understanding his attempts at explaining. “Our quality of life might be better, but we’re soft. We’re detached from nature. And we pollute beyond control. Our species destroys our only planet.”   
“Smooth,” Donna replied. “Congrats. You’ve ruined date night.”  
“Are you annoyed with my rant or just commenting on humans’ recklessness?”  
“Russia pollutes, too, you know,” Donna noted.  
“I know, I know. I’m not saying that one particular country is the sole cause, although the Pentagon and U.S. capital does lead the way,” Richard said. “I’m not explaining it well at all. Basically, we’re living relatively well, but our consumption and pollution kills more than we’ll ever know.”  
They slowed to a stop, three cars behind the red light.   
“When do you want me to head south?” Richard asked, rolling his neck over to gaze lovingly at his wife, his eyes apologizing playfully for bringing up a sad subject on their night out.  
His wife said with a laugh, “I’m not sure if that look is good for the op or good for my bod’.”  
“Both!” her husband replied, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.  
“I’d just stay on this til Dupont Circle,” Donna directed, retaining a bit of professionalism.   
Richard accelerated, taking in the sites. Trees swayed. Homeless begged as a few wealthy consumers walked past, eyes front. Abandoned storefronts offered purpose and a sense of renewal for those willing to look beyond the graffiti and plywood.  
“Do you think the people here will ever learn?”   
“Learn what?” Richard asked. “Turn?” he said in his next breath.  
“Mm, emm,” Donna negated. She paused. “That both parties only care and have only cared for corporate interest. The rights of workers never factored in.”   
“How about now?” Richard asked his wife.  
“No, no turn.”  
They crossed Rock Creek and slowed down as traffic thickened.   
“Oh, traffic. That’s good,” Richard noted. Good for their evening’s operation.  
Donna reached her hand down into the center console once more. She slowly engaged a second, thicker switch. The lights on the dashboard dimmed briefly. Richard glanced down into the center console, noting that the green light was now red.   
“How do you want to approach tonight? Park for a bit or drive around?” Richard asked.  
“How about a little bit of both?” Donna replied. “Where’s the best place to lie on our backs and look at the stars?”  
“How about the grass beneath Daniel Webster’s statue?” Richard proposed. His brow rippled in excitement.   
“You’re on,” Donna replied. “I hope a couple stars make it through this light pollution.”   
Richard’s smile grew. The early evening breeze, however laced with pollutants, delighted him until they reached the intersection with Connecticut Avenue.   
“I reprogrammed the MDI to automatically shut off if any of the six counterintel numbers you collected fall into its net,” Donna said. She removed from her pocket what looked like a late-1990s personal digital assistant.  
“What would I do without you?” Richard asked. And he meant it.   
As the couple drove southeast, the powerful mobile device interceptor in the trunk mimicked a cellphone tower, happily interacting with nearby cellphones. Thousands of unique International Mobile Subscriber Identities compiled on Donna’s handheld assistant.   
“What do you love most about this town?” Richard asked, looking up at a few bold stars through the canopy of a powerful green ash tree.  
Focused on the IMSI data in her hand, Donna joked, “The sexy intel officers.” In the next breath she added, “I was thinking of taking the kids to watch a Caps practice in Arlington this week. What do you think?”   
“Can I come? I can swing by after my McLean business.”  
“Good call,” Donna replied. Using a stylus, she typed in a few commands, looking for a specific IMSI on the screen in front of her.  
Richard gave her the space to concentrate. He thought about his work in McLean. The town frothed with ripe intelligence targets: crotchety mid-level analysts passed over for multiple promotions, pissed about being supervised by some young Ivy League punk; fresh promotees, eager to boast about their credentials at local bars; university professors, happy to finally be recognized with some grant money, indifferent that it came from the Pentagon’s coffers; battered capitalists of all ages who still craved cash and power; even a disgruntled Mackall Avenue housewife, angry that her husband continued to prioritize the needs of the war industry over quality time with the family.  
Secrets flowed like wine. Sometimes the same secret was lobbed among competing and complementary units—a U.S. defector let it slip in the morning, Moscow propaganda honed it in the afternoon, and a profiteering boardroom weighed its relative merit in the evening.   
Richard was pleased with the loose leash Moscow had given them. He presumed Moscow was pleased with his reports on the secrets of McLean war profiteers. Donna had taken the lead since last week, whisking away leaked blueprints and proprietary code on two separate occasions. Her latest dead drop was in Knox Hill. U.S. counterintelligence tried to deter and rebuff their attempts at monitoring the U.S. war industry, but the military-industrial-congressional complex was just too massive to effectively dissuade Moscow’s finest. And Richard and Donna were too good.  
A big blue mailbox caught Richard’s eye. He clicked up his directional signal and pulled over. He hopped out over his wife, momentarily straddling her—one foot on his seat and one on the coup passenger door—and then landed smoothly on the curb. He jogged to the mailbox and slipped in a letter, an Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity letterhead sealed tightly between the folds.  
“Is it true he supported a stricter Fugitive Slave Act?” Donna asked as Richard hopped back into the car.  
“Who?” Richard settled into his seat, buckled his seatbelt, and adjusted the shoulder strap.  
“Webster,” Donna replied, stashing her personal digital assistant in her breast pocket.  
“I don’t know,” Richard replied.   
“We got them,” Donna said, tapping her pocket. She looked up at him, smiling.  
Richard leaned in for a kiss. 

Washington, D.C. – The Slum

Art skidded to a stop, caught his breath, and looked around the four-way intersection. All streets promised difficulty: one had a gaping hole overseen by a rusty backhoe, down another an exposed boulevard stretched for kilometers, a decrepit church looming beyond, and two were dead ends.  
Night offered a pixilated cosmos, which bestowed the intersection with an outworld vibe.  
“Like our rail cycle, asshole?” a stony voice yelled.  
Art heard soles landing on pavement. He veered left, but was stopped short by a swift shadow. He deked right, but a longer shadow penned him in.   
“Eye for an eye,” Art foreshadowed, slowing to a stop.   
He turned to face his pursuers—two young men of Latin American descent. One of slight build had short black hair and wide eyes. His jaw was covered in blood. The other, lanky with a permanent smile, puffed out his chest.  
Art’s back faced a narrow alley. Encircled, he deked left. The shadows responded with a lightning adjustment, hedging him in like a cackle of hyenas. He tested their cordon. But they combined tepid advances with ferocious looks, rapid advances with friendly looks, leaving Art with the impression he was being toyed with by elegant hunters. He considered turning and sprinting down the alley, but he figured that was what his pursuers wanted.   
The lanky attacker cracked his knuckles menacingly. All pretense dropped from the man’s face.   
Art briefly thought about telling them his story, but ended up biting his lip. They’d never believe him. Who would?   
“Step up and get what is coming,” the shorter pursuer said through bashed teeth. He spit on the pavement, and then winked at a tooth bathing on the asphalt. Art took a step forward.   
They stepped back in unison, their eyes tracking him.   
No, Art realized, they were tracking movement behind him.  
“That’ll be enough.” The voice came from the alley.   
Art didn’t turn around. His captors stepped back again, and then stepped apart, looking around Art to appraise the new arrival.   
“Stand down, Kyle,” the voice behind Art said.   
Art looked down for a moment, trying to place the voice’s timbre in his memory.   
“He attacked us, Paul. He attacked us,” the shorter man argued. “You know the rules.”  
“Paul?” Art whispered.  
“I do know the rules, but he doesn’t,” the man named Paul asserted. “Now that he knows, he’ll abide.”   
A firm hand came to rest on Art’s left shoulder.   
“Eyes front,” the newcomer named Paul ordered. The hand guided Art backward. Art took each step as an individual event. When the new arrival had led Art about twenty meters from the pursuers, the man’s hand directed Art to turn around.  
Art eyed his rescuer. The grim man with brilliant eyes and weathered black skin slightly darker than Art’s started to jog beside him.  
“Paul!” Art proclaimed.   
“Indeed,” Paul confirmed. He picked up the pace. “Keep up, Art. Keep up.” He smiled.  
“How?” Art managed to say.  
“They recruit among the poor,” Paul noted. “Not that hard these days.”   
“Who?”   
“The gang. Those two are fairly harmless. They mean well, but—”  
Art looked back over his shoulder. The two were standing still. “Won’t they follow us?” Art asked.  
“We’ll see.”   
Art couldn’t tell if Paul’s voice reflected gloom or assurance.   
Paul led Art down the center of the desolate boulevard under the blushing night sky. The ratty church spires scooted closer. Art wondered if it was pollution or the city lights that gave it such ruddy colors. Probably both, he decided.   
“I taught you just down that road, yeah?” Art asked, breaking the silence.  
“Those were different days. Different days.” Paul picked up the pace.   
“It’s good to see you,” Art said, trying again, smiling amid deep breaths. His right arm came loose from the waistband, so he started cradling it with his left hand. He crossed to the left side of the train tracks that were embedded in the boulevard beneath their feet.  
“You too,” Paul replied. “The school closed up shortly after you left.”   
“Damn,” Art said, disappointed in many ways.  
“Where did you go, by the way?”   
“How big’s the gang?” Art asked, wondering if or when he’d tell Paul about his adventures. He looked around. Not one person was to be seen. Nobody in a window. Nobody on a stoop. Nobody. Many trees though.   
“We’ve got most of the residents in this area.”  
“We?” Art asked. “You’re involved?”   
“We’re all in a gang. Gangs are a part of life, ever since Congress walled us in. Congress, they’re a gang too. A gang composed of two like factions.”  
Questions bounced around Art’s mind: Where are the rest of my former students? Where is everyone in this district? How’d this gang come to power? What position does Paul hold in the hierarchy? How in the world am I going to get out of here? Where the hell are we headed?  
They turned northeast. A North Carolina Avenue sign hung limply from a street post decorated with bottle caps.   
“I read last night about some gangs,” Art said bleakly. The article had emphasized the gangs’ penchant for rape and grisly murder.  
“Let me guess. Murder with machetes? Kidnapping? Worse? Don’t believe everything you read,” Paul advised.   
“Yeah?” Art asked, still processing this turn of events.   
“Most that appears about us in the Post or the Times is disinformation. The worst we’ve done lately is take back the streets,” Paul conceded during a careful exhalation.  
They closed in on the church, approaching from the side. But Art perceived the church to be closing in on them. Exhausted, wounded, and parched, Art struggled to put one foot in front of the other. Paul slowed to a brisk walk, guiding Art into the sidewalk’s shadows.   
“Watch your step,” Paul cautioned, pointing to a deep hole in the sidewalk.  
“Thanks.” Art’s knee ached. His shoulder wailed for rest and medical attention. He stumbled up the steps.  
“We do our best, but we’ve got limited resources.”   
“Thanks,” Art said again, not sure why those were the words that exited his mouth.  
Paul raised an eyebrow, but kept his eyes on the broad church steps in front of him.   
“Where are we going?” Art asked.   
“Home,” his former student replied.   
Art followed Paul up the steps.  
Paul stopped in front of giant wooden doors, battened and ledged within a looming edifice of ancient granite. Ornate black iron crossed the door’s thick wooden slabs. Their dark authority stretched smoothly into the rock. Art could not see a handle amid the iron.   
Paul tapped one section of iron near where Art imagined the hinges were on the inside. The section—charcoal amid darker black iron—wiggled softly.   
Paul tapped again, four quick raps. He waited.   
“Throw the anchor,” a light voice challenged.   
“Bottomless bay,” Paul replied.   
Paul waited, stepping away from the center cleave between the massive doors. He walked back three paces and positioned himself beside Art.   
Three knocks emanated from beyond the doors.   
Paul stepped forward, replied with two knocks, a brief pause, and then three more.   
Art heard several clicks, followed by a heavy grinding and a thump.   
A rectangular opening appeared, more like a doggy-door than a human passageway, wholly contained within the giant door on the left. Paul ducked and stepped through, gesturing for Art to follow.   
The vestibule smelled like peaches. Cool air cushioned Art’s arms. Thick textiles—featuring dark shades of cats, squirrels, and pigeons—adorned every wall, including the upper reaches of interior doors. A colossal tree trunk lay across the floor. One chandelier of gentle wax dove deep from the ceiling. It looked like it was floating in mid air; the cavernous roof blurred above. A blood orange curtain made of fluffy velvet stretched from wall to wall, covering the entrance into the rest of the church.   
Art looked around. He wanted to ask a dozen questions. He settled on, “Can you tell me more about the gang?”   
Paul placed a gentle index finger to his lips, which Art took as a warning that the topic might be sensitive. Paul sat down on the floor. A thin carpet provided them a home. Paul patted the spot next to him. Art sat down, tucking his feet beneath him. Paul whispered, doing his best to explain gang life in a few sentences: Children, adolescents, and adults had lived on the streets. They mostly came from Honduras, El Salvador, and other parts of what was once known as Central America. They fled Langley-funded dictatorships, civil strife, and the ravages of neoliberal economic policies. Masters of the city, they banded together to provide for one another. Demonized and walled off by U.S. Congress, they’d been reconstructing large swaths of eastern D.C. for several years now.   
“How do you get along with Congress these days? Any improvement?” Art asked, his mind on the government goons who had opted not to pursue him into the slum.   
“Not much better. We’ve got power in numbers, so they keep their distance most of the time.”   
Art figured there was more to the story.   
“We’re still establishing a code of norms,” Paul continued. “It’s hard when besieged by outside forces, but we manage.” He concluded as a robed figure emerged from the right side of the blood orange partition. She had an ageless, motherly face. Her bronze skin shined amid the black sheets that enveloped her figure. She spread her arms—black wings, from Art’s viewpoint—to embrace Paul. He disappeared amid her comfort.   
Art’s head ached. His shoulder throbbed. He pictured it discolored and swollen beneath his shirt. He wanted to thank Paul. And thank her.  
“This is Art,” Paul said after surfacing.   
Art extended his good hand, which she swatted aside. She hopped forward and hugged him. He smiled, relishing what he perceived as her unconditional love. He felt tired, exhausted. He wanted to sleep in her arms. She braced him—one hand on his hip, one hand on his good shoulder—and held him up.   
“Names aren’t important,” she said softly, softer than her blankets.   
“What is this place?” Art asked, steadying himself with a wide stance.   
“Come,” the robed mum said. Art followed like a star-struck duckling, entering the church through the far right of the lush curtain. Paul tiptoed behind him.  
The lofty rafters emanated soft music, classical stringed instruments. Pews lined the walls. Quiet candles soothed. Repurposed wine bottles formed a rainbow window in the lofty recesses above. The smell of peaches now blended with a light rosemary. Art grinned, eyeing piles and piles of blankets stacked among three rows, five cots each. Beside each cot rested a small box upon which books and candles grazed. Women of all ages dozed around the nave.   
“Sorry for the interruption,” Art apologized.   
“We’ve got plenty of room,” the mum whispered. Her voice seemed to come from behind Art, even though she walked a few paces in front of him.  
“Thank you,” Art said through a yawn.   
“We’ve got classes in the morning, if you’re interested.”   
Art didn’t know how to reply. Who was she? What was this place? What classes? He just wanted to sleep and then figure out how to confront the D.C. powers that were trying to kill him.  
The mum paused and turned around. Her black robes glinted seams of silver as she spun. She gestured to the south transept where two cots lay comfortably. A lone candle illuminated worn blankets at the foot of each cot. A steel pitcher, cold with dew, glistened on the floor.  
“The bathroom is through that door,” the mum instructed, pointing to the left of the darkened apse with an open palm.  
Art sat down on one of the two cots and began untying his tired sneakers. It was slow going with his bad shoulder. Broken laces flopped on the frills of a small rug. He yawned loudly. Paul put a cool hand on his shoulder. He looked up and admired Paul’s dazzling blue eyes. He wanted to shake Paul’s hand, the best form of thanks Art could think of in his drowsy state. Art looked into the nave. Sleeping bodies wiggled in forgiving shadows.   
“Where’d she go?” Art asked.   
“She’s everywhere,” Paul replied cryptically. “Rest.”  
“What is this place?” Art inquired as he scooted up on the cot.   
Paul walked over to the pitcher and poured Art a mug of cool water. “It’s a home for former sex workers.” He handed Art the chipped mug.   
Art took a tender sip, grateful. He loved the feeling the swishing water made in his empty belly. He sipped again.  
“Are they in the gang?” Art asked.   
Paul shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. He sat down on the other cot and unbuttoned his long-sleeved shirt. He folded it into a neat square and placed it under his head as he reclined. A green t-shirt rose and fell over Paul’s deep breaths.   
“Who was she?” Art asked, telling himself to stop it with the questions.   
Paul cleared his throat and rolled over to face Art. Paul used his right sole to ease off his left sneaker, which hung briefly from his big toe until he gently lowered it to the ground with the choppy precision of a mother bird feeding a worm to her chicks. He did the same with the other foot.   
“She’s from Guatemala. She arrived in the eighties. The U.S.-backed dictatorship was targeting peasants in countryside. Agency-trained death squads killed over twenty thousand in less than sixteen months,” Paul explained. “They razed over three hundred villages that refused to be pacified. She fled after her family was…” Paul lowered his voice. “Wiped out,” he concluded, mumbling as sleep approached.   
Art inhaled deeply, doing his best to keep it quiet so as not to sound like he was sighing impolitely.   
Silence reigned.   
Peaches and rosemary had subsided. Pecan pie now governed his olfactory glands.  
“They’ve got classes in the morning if you’re interested,” Paul broached cheerfully.   
“Classes?” Art asked. He thought Paul had fallen asleep.   
“Basket weaving, bioremediation, knitting…” Paul thought some more. “Baking… writing workshops, sustainable forestry, first aid… meditation.”   
“Nice,” Art said, his mind refocusing on the days ahead of him. Someone wanted him dead, and Art assumed they had the full arsenal of the surveillance state on their side.   
“Sleep well,” Paul said.   
“You too,” Art replied.


	5. Chapter 5

Washington, D.C. – The Slum

“Laces!” Kyle screamed. His words echoed up the mossy stairwell, alerting his friends, family, and neighbors that the cops had arrived.   
“Outta my way,” the first cop ordered. In the dim stairwell, he quickly looked Kyle over, determined the eleven-year-old was not an immediate threat, and proceeded up the stairs. Five more cops followed apace, like domesticated Velociraptors.  
Equipment clinked and boots stomped as they stormed. Kyle had run into police regularly for a few years now. He noticed their uniforms had changed significantly over that time. They used to wear navy blue uniforms, sometimes starched, most of the time wrinkled. They used to carry a simple pistol. Now they wore kneepads, layers of black body armor, and helmets with dark visors. Now they carried assault rifles and two sidearms.   
“Laces!” Kyle shrieked once more, just to make sure everyone in the ramshackle apartment building knew it was getting raided.   
A cop with a thick brown mustache rested his battering ram on the step beside Kyle. “Say ‘laces’ again, and I’ll fuckin’ kill ya,” he whispered. His right index finger tapped his thirty-round magazine, keeping a menacing tempo. Stank breath—part coffee, part gingivitis—blanketed Kyle’s face.   
Kyle cringed and scooted down a step. He wiped away a tear and wrapped his left arm around the railing. He blinked hard and told himself his family would be okay. He pictured another band of cops bounding up the other stairwell in the back of the apartment building.  
The first cop—tall and pale, his sharp jaw protruding beneath his tinted visor—positioned himself at the edge of the second floor entrance, his back to the wall. His five confederates aligned in position. The cop with the mustache reared back and lunged forward with his metal ram. The door’s cheap plastic fragmented like rotten firewood. The tall cop pivoted around the bend, entering the room first.   
Screams and slurs peppered the family inside.  
The mother, formerly incarcerated under a ten-year mandatory minimum, jumped up from the couch, spilling a bowl of soup on the carpet. It splattered on her leg. She froze. The cops tackled her nonetheless. A teenage boy on a blue recliner managed to turn off the television before being shot in the shoulder. The cop would later write that he had been threatened by what he assumed was the young man’s pistol. It was a remote control. The father ducked into the kitchen, ushering two young children into the back bedroom.   
A spent cartridge singed the carpet.   
With over seven hundred raids under their collective belt, the team of law enforcement officials moved quickly and efficiently through the apartment. After one minute and thirty seconds, they surfaced back at the entranceway with no loot.   
“Where’s the stuff?” the tall, pale cop asked, maneuvering his puffy forearm under his helmet to wipe his brow.   
The mother, muzzled and bound on the floor, conserved her energy for the moment.  
A stocky cop with thick red wrists and more gear than neurons dragged the son away. “Stop resisting arrest!” the cop yelled, banging the son’s temple on the doorframe as they exited the apartment.   
Between sobs, the mother in the living room muttered, “We’ve got nothing here, nothing illegal.”   
The eldest son, his bloody face flat on the floor tile, looked up at the cop’s dark eyes. They dilated in the hallway light as the helmet’s visor lifted briefly.  
The cop with the battering ram leaned it against the wall and talked into the radio on his vest. “Roger,” he stated. “We’re going up to the fifth floor.”  
The stocky cop whipped out another pair of handcuffs from his belt.   
“He needs medical attention!” the father yelled, crawling from the living room into the stark hallway. A rifle butt struck him down. He scampered over to his son who was already handcuffed to the railing. The father hugged his son’s waist, resting his head in his son’s lap.  
And so the cops progressed, from the second floor to the third, the third to the fourth. Each floor, a new home to terrorize, but no weapon or cache was found. Three African-American corpses lay in the assault team’s wake, a comparably low body count for a day’s work.  
They emerged on the fifth and final landing. Three cops, a different group, which had just secured the rear of the building, jackbooted down the hallway. They blended smoothly with the primary assault team like two oil slicks.  
“Where the FUCK is it?!” the stocky cop with thick wrists yelled.   
“Nothing on the back end,” said one cop, torso taut with carabineers and ammunition.  
“One floor left. One apartment,” the tall, pale cop replied. “This gotta be it.”   
The unit lined up in their special tactics positions, battering ram primed, chinstraps clasped, gloves tightened, safeties off, hearts racing.   
“—ne sec,” the tall cop ordered. He bent down on one knee and slid a rucksack off his back. From the front left pouch he pulled a long thin strip. He re-donned his ruck and scooted closer to the door. The cop with the battering ram recognized the proceedings and moved to the far corner in order to set down his battering ram. He then returned to his position, assault rifle low and ready.  
A door slammed somewhere in the stairwell below.   
The tall cop peeled a reedy film off the bottom of the thin rectangular prism and threw the wrapping to the ground. He pressed the sticky side of the material vertically along the right portion of the door. The plastic explosive slurped lightly as it adhered to the chipped paint. He nodded to the stocky cop who was ready and waiting. The stocky cop tossed him a small beige fuse, which the tall cop caught and eased into the lower portion of the explosive. He stepped back three paces.   
The stocky cop pressed the tiny button on the remote detonator. The concussion sounded more like a monster screeching than an explosion. One cop tossed a flash-bang grenade into the apartment for good measure.   
The three women rose up inside, staggering against the blinding glare. They darted in three different directions. Cops fired, dropping the two slower women. The third woman dove into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind her. The support team spread throughout the cramped apartment, covering all corners.   
The stocky cop walked over to the second woman. She was writhing on the floor. He was perplexed; neither of the women had screamed. These three were more professional than the families his team had encountered on the lower levels, he determined. He admired the soothing hue of dusky blood coating her dark skin. She coughed. He bound her hands behind her back with brilliant handcuffs. Her lungs sputtered again. He placed a solitary index finger against his lips, ordering her to be quiet. She buried her face in the harsh carpet.   
“Where’s the contraband?” the stocky cop asked calmly.  
He looked to his right. A fellow officer of the law rolled the other woman onto her back. Deceased, he noted casually.  
The tall cop walked over to the bedroom door. He stood aside and rapped on the adjacent wall with practiced calm. “Ma’am, surrender or we’ll have to enter with force.”   
A muted scuffle, the only reply.  
“Breach it,” he ordered his team, disregarding standing policy that demanded three separate warnings be given inside a residence before entering a room forcefully.  
In seconds, the door, the final levy, lay shredded. The cops flooded into the room like a commercial storm surge.  
The woman was standing on the bed, silver pistol in her hands. Over twenty bullets, center-mass, forced her to the pillow. She allowed a tear to join the blood.  
She looked over the cops through foggy anguish. The logo of their corporate sponsor—DINEOR, the nation’s third-largest chemical company—splayed prominently on their chests in bright yellow letters.   
“Where’s the contraband?” the stocky cop asked.   
She nodded faintly to the closet to the right of the bed. The cops’ guns—two cops in each corner now—remained trained on her body. She closed her eyes.   
The cop walked over to the closet. The woman’s silver pistol lay on the ground. He kicked it under the bed. He opened the closet.   
The heirloom seeds greeted him: apple, cherry, and paw paw; blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry; tomatoes, beans, peas, and corn; pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash. Shelves boasted rows and rows, all wisely catalogued, selected carefully over generations.   
“We’ve got ‘em,” one cop said into his radio. “Secure.”   
“No,” the homeowner gurgled from the bed. “Please don’t.”   
A bullet charged through her skull. Legal, per the officer’s task order.

Art rotated his head to the right, the dream still swishing in his vision. He opened his eyes to pitch-blackness. The lone candle between his cot and Paul’s had winked out. The knuckles on Art’s right hand brushed against the pitcher on the floor. He appreciated the glancing coolness as he processed the nightmare he had just experienced.   
He sat up. He strained to hear any sound coming from the nave, but only perceived the softness of a welcoming home. He reached for the pitcher. It felt weird doing everything with his left hand. Despite being cool to the touch, there was no water inside.   
An image of mum’s cozy face settled in his mind’s eye. What did Paul mean when he had said ‘She’s everywhere’?  
Thirsty, Art picked up the pitcher, stood up, and shuffled slowly through the darkness in the general direction of the apse that mum had pointed out earlier.   
How much earlier? What time was it? Art walked tenderly out from the south transept. He began to distinguish the rectangular shapes of the cots in the middle of the church. He moved his head slowly, allowing his peripheral vision to inform him about more telltale shapes. He shuffled over to the apse, now seeing that he needed to take two steps up in order to reach the platform. Art ascended slowly.   
He paused and looked back over his shoulder. A wheat pink hue coated the church.  
“It’s as if time stands still in here,” he whispered, turning back around, and walking to the far door. He pushed gently on the door. It gave way immediately, without a sound. A flickering light pulsed under another door, three paces down the hallway. He felt his way there, happy to step into the bathroom beyond. A giant blue candle, several wicks flickering in the center, stood tall in the middle of the tiled floor. The tiles reminded Art of a Moorish design he had seen long ago. Along the far wall rested three buckets, all grey in color. Simple wooden toilet seats rested above sturdy frames. Art placed the pitcher on the tiles near the candle and then sat down, grinning as the low squat eased his bowels loose.   
So mum is from Central America? Art recalled. He reflected on Washington, D.C., policies that fueled the push and pull among parts north and parts south: neoliberal economic policies that ravaged Central American economies; the random deportation and shredding of families; and, yes, Langley’s dirty wars against indigenous peoples.  
He thought about the private prisons (like COKC – Corrections, Our Kindness Curates) that profited off of D.C. policies. They worked hard to meet the high quotas set by boardrooms, which lobbied Congress hard. They packed every offender in together, putting good and innocent next to bad, breeding a high standard of unwanted. Meanwhile, D.C. privatized education and defunded rehabilitation programs, putting even more knowledge and access out of reach. Thoughts swirled.   
He admired the bathroom’s intricate sink, clearly salvaged from somewhere else. A construction or demolition site, perhaps. Real thought, so clear now, washed over Art. If D.C. really wanted to end war in Central America and Mexico, it would stop foreign military financing, stop deporting people, and legalized narcotics, preferring treatment and rehabilitation instead of incarceration. Problems would still remain, but the conflict would deflate as the profits and weaponry fizzled.   
Define injustice, Art challenged himself. The regulation of human movement based on one’s place of birth, he answered; the U.S. economy was still very much dependent on exploiting the undocumented labor that flowed north from economies D.C. had screwed with. Corporations made giant piles of money off the militarization of the border, an amount only exceeded by the immeasurable monies sucked up by the U.S. war industry fighting glorified posses abroad. Art looked up into the mirror above the sink. He had finished washing his hands, the bar of coarse lemon soap still in his right palm, testing his tender shoulder. He replaced the soap and emerged from the bathroom, full pitcher in hand, accepting an oddly renewed sense of hope: If this refuge can thrive in the middle of D.C.’s oppression, then anything might be possible.  
A lanky shape stepped in front of him. Art’s heart tripped for a moment as the shape materialized into the grinning gang member who had threatened him earlier on the street. Art stopped walking and tensed his muscles. The man’s permanent smile widened as he recognized Art. He stepped around Art, patted Art gently on his bad shoulder, and entered the hallway to the bathroom.   
Utterly confused, Art walked back to his cot, remembering where the steps were along the way.   
Paul was tinkering with the laces on Art’s sneakers. The candle between the cots was pulsating low light once more.   
“I remember last year a couple Treasury press releases dubbed some gang a ‘transnational criminal organization,’” Art said, whispering his thoughts as they came to him. “Impressive.”  
“What is?” Paul looked up, his hands still threading the frayed lace.  
“Huh?”   
“What is impressive?” Paul clarified.  
“Just how the system works, I guess,” Art said, matching Paul’s whisper while sitting down on the cot.   
“Hmph.” Satisfied with his handiwork, Paul slid Art’s sneaker along the floor. Repaired, it came to a stop next to its match. “I like these cots. Comfortable. Made of repurposed hemp, I think.”  
“I just mean that the system eliminates anyone or any organization that successfully poses an alternative means of organizing society,” Art continued. He realized the full magnitude and implication of each word as he said it.   
“Well said,” Paul said. “Kyle’s was the first street gang to be deemed a SDGT.” Paul’s words rushed out suddenly and loudly, propelled by the force of a furious yawn. Art was familiar with the term—Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Washington, D.C., used the SDGT appellation to punish a lot of people who resisted D.C.’s imperialism or Israeli colonization. Branding someone SDGT had always been a political move. Art weighed the state’s techniques for oppression. Libel, slander, bribery, imprisonment, and assassination stood out to him as the go-to favorites.   
Paul’s breathing suggested that he had already fallen back asleep. Art admired the skill of falling asleep quickly. He rolled over onto his right side, careful to align his shoulder comfortably along the lip of the cot. He eyed the wall three paces in front of him. It was covered in the dim outline of hand tools. A fluffy substance rested along the floor. Sawdust, Art figured. The apse hugged the bottom of his vision. A lanky blip slid smoothly along the floor and descended the steps with suave familiarity. Familiar with the dark, familiar with the premises.  
Art rolled out of bed like a slow motion car crash. Landing softly on all fours, he straightened up—his vertebrae rolling straight, from low to high—and shuffled over to the swift shape. Kyle stopped and turned to the guest.   
Art stopped well within what he judged to be Kyle’s personal bubble.   
Kyle stood tall. He extended his hand. “Kyle.”   
“Art.”   
Kyle shook his hand slowly.  
“Sorry,” Art whispered, wincing.  
Kyle nodded.   
“I felt cornered,” Art explained.   
Kyle continued nodding.   
Art now realized Kyle had checked his hiding place, the shed by the basketball courts, because it was his turf and he was making the rounds before bed. Like a good steward. Art felt sheepish and rueful. He had been wrong far too often lately. Art scolded himself as he admired Kyle’s monk-like demeanor. He summoned a meek offer. “I’ll pay for your, for your medical expenses.”  
Kyle rubbed his groin. He reached into the folds of his clothing and removed an ice pack.   
“How’s your friend?” Art asked. “How’re his teeth?”   
“Don’t worry about it,” Kyle said, his tone a creamy purr. “We’ve got free dental.” He chuckled, patted Art affectionately on his left shoulder, and walked away.   
“And thank you for your hospitality,” Art whispered after him.   
Kyle returned to Art’s side, walking backwards in reverse. “We’ve got our scars. We’ve gotta help.” 

Southeast Washington, D.C.

She rubbed his buzz cut back and forth in her palms. The stubble on his face grazed her inner thighs. She groaned deeply, doing her best to ignore the script running across the computer monitors in the corner of her loft. She closed her eyes, sank farther into the couch, and tried to enjoy her guest’s fantastic skills.   
PING!   
“Wha ith that?” her guest asked amid a mouthful.  
She pushed her guest’s head backward, nudged him aside with her heel, and scampered across the room, a cotton tee her only clothing.   
“It worked!” she hollered, appraising the hacked feed as it unscrambled on the top right monitor.   
The video stream belonged to the Pentagon’s Northern Command. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, USNORTHCOM had recently deployed what it called ‘persistent stare’ capabilities above every major U.S. metropolis.   
Maya entered three separate commands on her keyboard.   
The 2.1 billion pixels spread out across the bottom two rows of monitors in front of her. The code, which she had written to hack the persistent stare, stayed put on the top left monitor.   
Each aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle constructed in a sprawling facility north of San Diego, carried the persistent stare device in a pod mounted beneath the fuselage. From over five kilometers up in the air, a single aircraft covered forty square kilometers. All moving objects on the ground were tracked automatically. Over one million terabytes of video data, per city, per day, were at her fingertips. She typed in two more commands and pressed ENTER. Now a program of her creation would search for her target among this vast amount of data.   
“Do you want—,” her guest started to ask.   
“Shhh!” she ordered. She focused on analyzing recent changes she had made to the computer code.   
Her guest wiped his chin on his forearm and stood up.   
“If I can combine this with my own program, I’ll be able to pinpoint him,” she whispered.   
“Should I—”  
“I said shut up!” Maya demanded.   
Her guest shuffled downstairs and slunk towards the door.   
She kneeled beside the desk chair, too excited to sit. She minimized a messaging app—Jonathan Worrell blinked purple at the bottom of one screen. Clutter aside, she now checked Art’s social media feed. No updates for over twenty-four hours now. No matter. She clicked over to her psychological profile of Art. “Hmmm.” Her eyebrows danced as she typed.  
Three minutes of number crunching and four minutes of typing got her no closer to finding Art. She let her initial enthusiasm subside and resigned to let her algorithms do their work. She stood up, stretched her arms over her head, and decided to hit the showers. She walked downstairs to grab a towel out of the laundry pile.   
“You’re still here?” Maya asked, slightly bemused.   
Maya’s guest was standing meekly by the door. Gesturing to the series of locks that rimmed the frame, he said, “I can’t figure out how to open it.”  
Maya had blindfolded her paramour before leading him up into her apartment. He had thought of it as a romantic delight, but she had done it for security purposes. An unmarked alleyway led to multiple hidden access points, though Maya typically entered and exited her apartment through the discreet industrial dumbwaiter in the false chimney at the back of her neighborhood pub. The armed cooks, allies and friends, offered added security.   
“Here,” Maya said, screening him with her body and opening the series of locks in rapid succession. “I’ll walk you out.”

Washington, D.C.

“Where’s my assistant?” Chertoff’s gruff words echoed off the kitchen cabinets. He was winding down a long day overseeing the cordon and examination of the townhouse where they had billeted Art.   
Chertoff’s assistant immediately scurried her way inside, snuffing out a cigarette with her last step. Her mane of red hair came to a poofy rest as she sidled up to Chertoff. She handed him an encrypted smartphone. As a matter of extreme professional and operational security, Chertoff never carried a smartphone or any mobile device with him. He knew what NSA could do, and he knew what many foreign intelligence services could do, not to mention the capabilities of most telecom corporations. All legal, but since when, he’d often muse in the privacy of his study, did the law constrain the activities of authority?  
“Tech relay,” Chertoff’s assistant informed him.  
He opened the screen door and walked out onto the back stoop. He admired the grit caked on the nearest cement wall as he waited for his favorite engineer from Langley’s Science & Technology directorate to be patched through.  
“Boss?” the sycophantic engineer said, coming online.   
“Chertoff here,” Chertoff replied stoically. He looked through the gap between the houses towards the main street. An obese woman was wheezing up the street’s steep incline. “Where are we?” Chertoff asked.  
“You know the Grough private contractors and HRT tracked Art into the slum, yes?” the engineer asked.   
“Yes. Has he surfaced yet?”  
“Negative. What do you recommend?”   
Chertoff’s gaze crossed the backyard and settled on a second-story home. A couple was enjoying a late-night snack. The man struggled to work the microwave, most of his effort going to gossiping about his co-workers. The woman, cushioned by designer slippers, placed her plastic coffee cup in the trash next to the sink.  
“Sir?” the engineer asked delicately.   
“Get the armed MQ-14 airborne,” Chertoff ordered.   
“Yes, sir,” the engineer replied. “I’ll have to liaise with DO on that one to—”  
“Just do it,” Chertoff interrupted. He opened the screen door once more, fluidly moving his left boot to catch the bottom frame. He stood in the doorway.   
“One more thing, sir…”   
Chertoff’s silence acceded ‘continue’.  
“When we get it up and running, we’re going to have to make a choice as to our first objective,” the engineer explained.   
‘It’, Chertoff understood, was quantum computing.  
“Explain,” Chertoff ordered.   
“As I see it, our choice for the first run is between two datasets: process all the data to figure out where the next attack’ll be, or—”  
“Negative,” Chertoff said, interrupting. At worst, he rationalized, the next attack will be a relative pinprick. He can hype it, play up the fear, and then use it to stifle dissent at home and expand conquest abroad. Chertoff paused. He admitted haste, acknowledging he had cut off the engineer. “You were saying…”   
“Yes… sir,” the engineer continued. “We can crunch all the data on the next attack or harness quantum in an attempt to locate the terrorist named Maya.”  
“Track the terrorist,” Chertoff commanded, briefly wondering if even quantum could do anything with the disperse data points the technicians had gathered on Maya. He let the door go and, sliding his boot away, entered the kitchen once more. The screen door slammed.  
Chertoff’s assistant squirreled to his side, her mane of curly red hair trailing like a vapor cone around an F-18 jet.  
Handing Chertoff a beefier phone with a thicker antenna askew, his assistant said, “You have one more call to make.”

Dubai, UAE

Thirteen Arabs and four Israelis of European origin filed cordially into a luxury conference room. Over a decade earlier, Mossad had killed al-Mabhouh in the same hotel, but the Arabs today lounging on the modernist furniture couldn’t have cared less. The countries—Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, and the U.K.—whose forged passports Mossad had used to enter the United Arab Emirates had pursued no sustained, formal objection after intense diplomatic pressure from Washington, D.C.   
Moshe, who lived on stolen Palestinian land and once chased Arab apparitions in southern Lebanon, glanced at a Saudi mukhabarat veteran named Wisam. They exchanged pleasant smiles across the walnut coffee table; Moshe and Wisam had developed a solid rapport over many previous closed-door meetings. Wisam’s notes rested beside him in a leather journal, filed between his upcoming Global Initiative speech and the speech he would make to representatives from a Tysons Corner weapons manufacturer next week at Dhahran International Airport. Wisam adjusted his seat, appreciated a new alignment astride the streamlined, tuxedo framed, deep velvet, plush diamond tufting. He scanned the room from his corner couch. Somewhat separate from other delegations present—Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE—he preferred to watch and learn.   
The CIA representative in the room was unable to carry on a conversation in Arabic, so he had to rely on the Language Officer that the Directorate of Operations had sent him. Through this intermediary, the Agency rep tried to include one of Wisam’s assistants in the initial chitchat. This failed miserably. The interpreter struggled, the representative rambled, and the Saudi’s assistant lost interest before the Langley rep hit the punch line on his anecdote about briefing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The irony he was trying to convey—that the Agency, the very institution that regularly undermined what remained of U.S. democracy, was in charge of briefing the legislative branch—was lost among the expensive furniture. Instead, silence prevailed.  
A Jordanian leader apologized as he arrived late. He made the rounds, hugging and kissing his fellow invertebrates. Israel’s public ties to the Jordanian regime were well known. Over the years, this Jordanian leader had ramped up political, military, and economic cooperation with Israel. Technology from the U.S. war industry had played an integral role binding the two. The two governments also cooperated on tourism, trade, and energy initiatives, in addition to controlling human movement and stifling Palestinian resistance.   
Not wanting to disturb the proceedings, the Jordanian quickly sidled up to his old friend, the Saudi named Wisam. They swapped pleasantries and fell into a respectful silence. The group discussion progressed nicely across many topics: salaries for certain Palestinian élites, Security Council resolutions, disposing of Israel’s toxic waste in the West Bank, confidential trade pacts, anticipated Israeli weapons exports, and plans for the group’s upcoming meeting at Sharm Al-Sheikh. 

“What about Arafat al-Dawli airport?” Wisam piped up as the meeting drew to a close, showing his first and only concern for Palestinians during the entire session.   
“If they rebuild, we bomb,” Moshe affirmed.  
Wisam said nothing. He drummed his fingers on the luxury robe draped over his knee.   
Moshe eyed his wristwatch.   
The Jordanian leader mumbled something about the time he had spent at Fort Knox in the eighties, and joked with himself about Lebanon Junction.   
The CIA rep bit his lip. Voicing public dissent against Israeli edict regarding the Palestinians would have broken an Agency liturgy that dated back to the reign of James Jesus Angleton.  
The Jordanian leader stood up. The other attendees followed suit. Wisam and Moshe lingered at the end of the line to discuss one final arrangement.   
One of Wisam’s aides entered the room on tiptoes. He whispered in Wisam’s ear.   
“Pardon me, I have to take this,” Wisam said to Moshe in English.  
Moshe nodded, shook hands with Wisam, and closed the conference room door behind him.   
Alone with Wisam, the aide handed his boss a smartphone.   
Wisam picked up and gestured for the aid to depart. “Hello, good friend.”   
“Hello, Wisam,” Chertoff replied.   
“We miss you. Meetings are not the same with these chicken-shit replacements.”  
“I understand,” Chertoff agreed. “I’ll make it quick.”  
“Okay,” Wisam replied.   
“We’re picking up some isolated talk about a big operation coming up. An attack.”  
“An attack?”  
“We think. All we’ve got so far is a name. Operation LBJ.”  
“Interesting,” Wisam said slowly.   
“Our analysts can’t pinpoint the location or the method.”  
“How can I assist?” Wisam replied.   
Chertoff instructed Wisam to take the Jordanian leader aside. “Tell him what I said, and let him know I’ll be in touch. We’re still spit-balling this thing.”  
“Thank you for the notice. I’ll double check our HUMINT logs tonight and forward anything of note.”  
“Thank you, Wisam.”  
“Thank you.”   
“And Wisam?”   
“Yes?” He bit his lip.   
“We’re going to need some cash. Off the books. Usual route.”  
“Anything else?”   
“That will be all.”   
“Tayyeb.” Okay.  
“Thank you.”  
“Thank you.”

Washington, D.C. – The Slum

Vegetables sprouted everywhere, even from cracks in the crumbing fence. Pallets adorned the courtyard walls, from which a variety of plants bloomed. Art had recognized kale and spinach immediately. He appreciated how well the relatively small space was utilized—about a quarter of an acre, as far as Art could tell. Vines and edible fruits climbed trellises. Potted plants lined the back steps. Fresh herbs burst from an arc of repurposed desk lamps along the northern edge of the yard. A smooth maple tree, many mighty years ahead, supervised it all above a warp of roots from the southwest of the yard.   
Art, basket in hand, walked along the far corner of the garden. He passed two cold frames and a compost pile tucked inside a bin made of downed tree limbs. A wide alleyway forked away from the church beyond the compost pile.  
“Mom would have loved this,” Art mused.   
The last rays of the western sun nourished the mustard greens and bok choy at his feet. He stepped left, over a swale, and began spreading organic matter over the soil. He tossed a handful—compost made from kitchen scarps, woodchips, leaves, coffee grounds, and grass clippings—across the earth.   
He appraised the church’s approach. Seemed like they were focusing mostly on four core crops: squash, beans, potatoes, and corn.  
A hen clucked next to the steps.   
“And eggs,” Art added, laughing, through lingering shoulder pain, at his good fortune.   
A woman approached.   
“Come sit,” she said, leading Art towards the back steps with an easy glide. “You can leave your basket here.”   
Art placed his basket on the final step, level with the chicken coop to his right.  
They stepped inside.  
Detectable aromas washed over his face. Baked gourds aside hues of honey concentrated their bath along the outside corners of his eyes, sizzling shallots, leaks, and chives gavotting to his ears.   
Art followed, sad to leave the garden but hungry for a meal; he followed the woman who in turn followed her nose.   
“Remind me to show you my gardening notes. And after supper I can also show you where we preserve and store our crops.”  
“Mmm,” Art said, part hearty sigh, part alacrity.   
The woman laughed. “Good,” she said softly.   
They exited the community kitchen and emerged next to the altar. Tables were spread before them; many of the church’s residents were already seated. The woman gestured for Art to sit.  
“How was your time in the garden?” asked the woman. She wrapped herself in a wool blanket as she sat cross-legged directly across from Art. She had kind grey eyes, soft skin, bristly cheeks, and billowing white hair. Art felt naturally drawn to her.   
“How did you do it?” Art’s question overlapped with hers. His enthusiasm overflowed. “I mean, where did you all learn that stuff?”  
Her grey eyes looked through him. “Many years ago.”  
Art smiled, waiting for more.   
“Picture this.”  
She closed her eyes. Art did the same.  
“Hills rolling, footpaths threading, water gurgling, thorns waiting. Old tires and fallen logs corralling. Peaches, pears, bananas, and apples. Drumstick trees, figs, pomegranate, garlic, mint, olive, onion, potato. Sunflower. Verbena.”  
Art sat back, entranced.   
“Amid it all, flowers bloomed. Herbs garnished sightlines. While we enjoyed good tropical rains, we recognized cycles. Nothing is permanent. We chose permaculture because we wanted to work with the environment, not against it.” Her words massaged Art’s temples like cold ice cubes. “My papa went organic when he began to notice the water being replenished less and less.” She opened her eyes. “So you had a good day?” she asked, rephrasing an earlier question.   
“It was really good,” Art said, opening his eyes too.  
The table was set, a vegetable pasta the main course.   
Art swallowed. “I feel refreshed.” He was thankful for the time spent, not only resting but also getting his thoughts in order. It was not every day an Agency employee realized the Agency was a pernicious organization.   
He looked around the low table. Paul sat to his right on an overflowing purple cushion. Mum and a guard sat at opposite ends of the table. Kyle sat next to the woman in wool, who sat across from Art.   
The guard at the head of the table closed his laptop, announcing, “Weather looks good.” He slid the laptop under a pillow on the floor next to him.  
“Why don’t you just trust me, the almanac, and the thermometer?” the woman in the wool blanket asked him gently.   
He smiled, his square teeth beaming. “I guess I’m old school.”   
“Only in today’s dystopia does ‘old school’ mean ‘satellite maps,’” Paul chimed in.   
Everyone laughed at the truth.   
The woman in wool said, addressing Art, “You’d be surprised how permaculture can bring people together.”  
“We like the phrase ‘look what the cat dragged in’ to describe our ragtag group of friends,” mum explained.  
“And of family,” the woman in wool added.  
“Is that what you’ve developed here? Is this permaculture?” Art asked, gesturing to the backyard.   
“No, not yet. We’re working on it though,” said the woman in wool.  
“How do I?” Art paused to swallow a bit of squash, his mind looking past the obvious and focusing on impending days off the grid. “How do I set something like this up? What do I focus on?” Part of him considered it ridiculous to talk gardening when he was on the run for his life. Another part of him said there was no better way to spend his time.  
“It depends where you are,” mum counseled.   
“The keys, though, regardless of location, are to work with what you have. Work with what nature gives you. Gather natural supplies from the area. Use what’s around you. Even building stuff, natural components are more resilient than any of the building materials you’d find approved in official building code these days.”  
“And kinder to the environment. Biodegradable, that is,” mum said. She took a bite of saucy pasta made from spinach and onion.   
“What’s your favorite part?” Art asked.  
Mum thought for a moment. “I love the dishwater that drips out back to irrigate the plants.”  
“What about you?” Art asked the woman in wool.   
“The journey,” she replied.   
Mum smiled and blew her a kiss.  
“D.C. pushes massive, energy intensive farming because that’s what big agri-corporations want,” mum stated, matter-of-factly.  
“Self-sufficiency is a threat because anyone can do it. Rotate your crops. Compost to enrich the soil. Build a windmill with friends and family. You’re off and running.”  
Art, eying his pasta, absorbed the knowledge relayed but was unsure who had spoken it. He looked up.  
Mum reached out from her black folds and took Art’s left hand. Art was gripping his knife; he felt awkward that he couldn’t reciprocate. “You’re probably wondering about this place.”   
“It’s beautiful. I… thanks for taking care of me,” Art mustered.   
“Our pleasure,” the woman in wool said.   
“What happens when sex workers get old?” mum asked Art, tightening her grip on his knife hand.   
Art slurped up a loose piece of noodle. “I don’t understand.”   
“That’s how we got started,” the woman in wool clarified. She took a sip of water from a thick mug.   
“Our families didn’t want us and our looks had faded…” mum explained.   
“Many of us had no place to go,” the woman across from Art adjusted her wool blanket, draping it higher on her shoulders.  
The hum of nearby tables and clinking of utensils floated up and down from the rafters.  
“So instead of huddling together under a tarp behind a dumpster, we started this place,” mum concluded.   
Art didn’t know what to say. He found their story fascinating, but was worried he might offend his hosts if he asked an ignorant question. He cleared his throat and smiled.   
Mum let go of Art’s hand and patted him on the head like one would a puppy.  
“Go on, please,” Art encouraged. He placed his utensils in his bowl.   
Mum and the woman in wool told him about street life in the early 2020s, as east D.C. deteriorated, before authorities walled them off. Pimps demanded money at increasingly exorbitant rates. Physical abuse was frequent. Many fellow sex workers resorted to alcohol and other hard drugs.  
“Mum saved us,” the woman in wool added.   
“She changed the game,” the guard noted.   
“Changed the community in the process,” Kyle whispered.   
“Can I take a look at that?” the guard offered, gesturing to Art’s wounded shoulder, which rested comfortably in a discrete sling.  
Art replied, “Maybe tomorrow.”  
The guard nodded, chewing a particularly hardy vegetable.   
“So what happened?” Art asked, sitting back and smiling. He felt among friends. He’d have put his arm around Paul if his shoulder had allowed.  
The woman in wool blinked away a grateful tear. “She organized us into a force. She requisitioned this shelter, a retirement home of sorts.” She gestured with wooly wings to the surrounding church walls.   
“We are grateful for this dilapidated church,” mum said humbly.  
“A fixer-upper,” Paul joked.   
The guard at the end of the table laughed loudly. Everyone present then chuckled at his booming laugh. He smiled. He stood up and walked over to a long table by the nearest wall. Gently, he selected a record and put it on the turntable. Classic jazz soon emanated from solar-powered speakers and echoed around the nave.  
Art’s eyebrow flickered upwards for a second.   
“Pre-wall, there was nothing but trash and filth everywhere,” the guard said, returning to the table with a large salad bowl. He grunted, “OOPH!” as he sat down.   
“There was no time to rejoice in our victory—getting this building—because we had so much work to do,” mum explained.   
“Support from the city was nonexistent. They also struggled gathering enough charitable donations,” Paul explained.   
“But now they’re totally self-sufficient,” the guard affirmed.  
“Well, thank you for your hospitality,” Art said, addressing mum and cleaning the last smear of sauce from his bowl. “And how many of you are there… here?”   
“Former sex workers? What do you think, mum?” the woman in wool asked.  
“About thirteen of us, give or take,” mum replied.  
“What do you call it?”   
“The building? Our home?” mum asked. “We call it Silver Wheel.”   
“Nice!” Art applauded, his hand clapping his knee, a little too enthusiastically he then thought.   
Mum laughed. They sat in silence for moment after moment, appreciating one another, smiling and laughing.   
“Dessert is on its way,” mum announced softly.   
Paul stood up and began clearing the dishes.   
“Please, let me help,” Art offered. He stood up and picked up mum’s bowl using his good arm.   
“Not a chance,” mum said. “You are our guest.”  
Art soaked in her ageless face. They looked at each other for a moment’s eternity. He sat back down.   
Paul returned from the kitchen with a tray. Two piping hot pies slid slightly as he set down the tray.   
“From the solar oven. Made from mirrors and parts salvaged from around D.C.,” the guard said proudly.   
“You wouldn’t believe the resources RFK stadium used to throw away,” Paul said. He reached into his back pocket and checked his smartphone. He cocked his head and frowned.  
“You know, mum and I were once competitors on the street,” the woman in wool whispered, a wry grin blooming.  
“Uhhh,” Paul said.   
“What is it, Paul?” mum asked.   
“I just got a text,” Paul replied choppily.   
“And?” mum followed up patiently.   
“Says Art has five minutes to leave. Evacuate everyone.”  
“Pigs incoming!” mum yelped. 

Chevy Chase, Maryland

Donna glanced out the frosted basement window as Richard wound up to throw a dart. A slim wire the size of a human hair poked out from the wall a meter to the left of the dartboard, ran along the ceiling, and disappeared into the floorboards near the frosted window. Donna knew the wire’s precise route; she had spent a few days when they first moved in to this house routing the wire to the roof. It ran through the upstairs floorboards, into the chimney bricks, up the false back in the chimney, and out along the faux lightning rod. She and Richard could have finished the job in half the time if they had taken the easy way out and merely snaked the wire along the drainpipe and under the eaves, but she had insisted on a more secure route.   
“What time is Mikey’s game on Thursday?”   
Richard’s words brought Donna back. She caught herself picking at the paint along the edges of the frosted window above her head. She could see out, but nobody could see in.  
“Three forty-five, I think.” Donna walked over to the dartboard and plucked out the darts. “Can you make it?”   
Accepting the darts and a kiss from his wife, Richard said, “I’ll be there.”   
“Station ZZH10 has slid a little in recent weeks,” Donna said, licking her lips.  
“I know. I tuned it this morning. We’re good.”  
Donna took back the darts from his hands with a swipe and pushed her husband roughly against the wall.   
“Easy,” he cautioned. “I just added a new battery to the bank back there.” With his thumb, he gestured to the wall behind which the electronics hummed.   
“I. Don’t. Care,” Donna said playfully, pushing him around with each pause.   
He grabbed his wife by the hips, picked her up, and walked three paces to the dryer. She kissed him and attempted to grab the darts from him, but only snagged a blue one.  
“Heyyy,” she soothed, his lower lip in between her teeth.   
“Wait, this is us!” Richard informed, tossing the remaining darts onto the folded clothes atop of the washing machine.   
“How’d you even hear that?” she asked, hopping down and following him to the receiver.   
He flipped a switch, rerouting the signal, and placed a pair of snug headphones over his wife’s head. When it came time to be professional, nobody was more proficient than these two.  
She mouthed ‘thank you’ and grabbed a pen from an old tin can on the workbench. She leaned over a pad of paper, tore off a sheet, and slid the pad towards the wall. Out of habit she arched the fingers of her left hand slightly, as if laying her prints on an invisible key.   
Over seven thousand kilometers to the east, amid mire and moss, a pair of radio towers climbed into the cosmos. Meters of thorns and brambles ringed the interior of a rusted iron fence that encircled the towers at a hundred and ten meter radius. A lone guard shack sat in front of the radio towers, though the occasional passersby never saw anyone enter or exit. An abandoned Сталинец-100 bulldozer rested peacefully behind the gates. A variety of creeping vines and climbing plants had commandeered its tracks, pulling the vehicle down into the marsh. Trees with long patches of grey bark, looking nude against the forlorn sky, rose defiantly from the muck.  
Donna listened to the radio’s bland tones—a buzz interrupted at intervals by what sounded like a distant lighthouse, after which an airy voice would read out seemingly random Russian words. Donna blinked rapidly, impatiently, between the batches of Russian words. Richard stood to her right. He read her notes as she slid her hand down the page. He then crosschecked each slim paragraph with the one-time pad designated for this part of the lunar cycle. For a little over eleven minutes the duo worked efficiently and silently, two experts at the height of their profession.   
Today’s broadcast concluded with a familiar poem, one of a handful of Russian masterpieces that occasionally cropped up on the shortwave. 

Children - is rest, brief moment of respite,   
A trembling vow before God's eyes,   
Children - are the world's tender riddles,   
Where in the riddle the answer hides.

Nodding, Donna recognized the author. She finished jotting down her notes and then removed the headphones. Richard finished writing and collating the notes. Donna checked his work as he stored the headphones and refastened the fake wall behind the workbench. Screwdrivers on the peg-board clinked like delicate china as the wall fit into place. 

Washington, D.C. – The Slum

Art and Paul stood on the back porch. The controlled bustle from inside the old church reached their ears like accented sixteenth notes.   
“I—,” Art began.   
“We can take care of ourselves,” Paul affirmed.  
A revving car engine approached. For a brief second Art mistook a car’s firing cylinders for a turbofan’s acute incision piercing the sky above.   
Paul pushed Art’s good shoulder. “Go!” he commanded.   
Art turned around and sprinted. In a few vicious strides he reached the corn patch marking the north rim of the garden. He landed in a puddle as he dove between two pallets and headed to the intersection of the two alleyways that grew out from the edges of the garden. He stopped and turned around. Paul wore a content smile, which read: no regrets for helping a friend and an ally. Art turned. A rusty, pea colored coup wheeled around the bend and screeched to a halt at the intersection of the two alleys.   
“Get the FUCK in the car!” Maya said, swinging the passenger door open.   
Art ran to the car and hopped in without a word, the weight of his body scrunching the seat’s faded red leather. Art glanced to his right as Maya accelerated down the northwest alley. The back porch stood desolate. Paul was gone. The garden waited patiently against human anxiety.   
“Seatbelt!” Maya ordered.   
Art fastened the old buckle. Maya cut the wheel, ripped onto the main boulevard, and accelerated past a series of handcarts along the train tracks. She pressed an unseen button on the dash to the left of her steering wheel and crossed over to the other side of the abandoned boulevard. The needles of a sapling brushed Art’s mirror as if to wave ‘slow down.’  
A screeching explosion wailed against the car windows. The shockwave shattered the rear window and splintered the glass on Art’s side of the car.  
“God damn it!” Art screamed. He shook his head to dispel the shock. Maya looked serene yet focused in his peripheral. He bent over and placed his head between his knees, allowing his kneecaps to massage his temples. Somehow the pain in his shoulder didn’t seem so bad now.   
“You’re fine,” Maya whispered.   
Art sat up and forced himself to scan the horizon. In rearview mirror, the caustic mushroom from the explosion of the AGM-88H missile reared like a reaper.

Southern Maryland

The flames of three thin indigo candles reached for the ceiling. Their spill coated the dark wood on Chertoff’s bare desk.   
He brooded. Two rapid defeats—Art slipping out of the residence and then hiding in the slum—still buffeted his senses. He blinked. The slum. A dangerous place. Ungoverned space. A dark area. A place of degenerates and reprobates at best, rebels and revolutionaries at worst. He blinked again.  
Despite these setbacks, all else was on track. With Wisam’s help, Chertoff had secured covert funding to sustain his operations for another two months.   
Somewhere deep down Chertoff acknowledged for the first time that this would be his final operation. His official resignation letter, written out but unsigned, lay in the filing drawer against which his left knee currently rested. He’d submit it next month and retire quietly. It would be a fitting, discreet dénouement. He had entered the game subtly and without a flare. It would be only appropriate to exit softly, flourish forsaken.  
A bittersweet smile accompanied this acknowledgment. Nobody had lasted as long as he had at this game. He’d risen from a taciturn young case officer with a penchant for pranks and an ear for power to a premier player, the only player still behind the scenes in today’s era of publicity and self-promotion. His era was long gone, and he knew it. His time was up. He was a walking relic. Taking care of Art on his own, cleaning up the pest, would be a suitable final operation: straightforward in aim and subtle in execution.   
He took a sip of cold coffee and returned the mug to its proper place at the base of the three indigo candles. He focused, ready to select a replacement. Someone to take the reins. But, candidly and, yes, humbly, no one person could take his place; two might suffice, though he couldn’t trust two. One of their egos would always win out, spark conflict, and ruin a plot. But who to pick? Who to replace him? He had narrowed the choices down to five contenders. Four who identified as males, one as female. He set the female’s file off to the side. A woman couldn’t handle a position of such authority.   
The candlelight massaged Chertoff’s baggy eyes, eyes that longed for other days, the days when he was up and coming, when greats like Dulles and Angleton, even Helms and Wisner, roamed the halls and made the tough decisions. Fully aware of his chauvinism, he pushed the female candidate’s file to the edge of his desk. A cold fireplace next to the desk eyed the file hungrily. He spread the remaining four files out in front of him. He flicked the index cards he had tacked to the outside of each file, a few pros and cons listed.   
Candidate one. Bachelor of Computer Science at James Madison. PhD in Economics at Princeton. Retired Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force. Known as the ISR King for his promotion of unmanned platforms during his career’s ascent. Won wing commander of the year twice. Established the Global Headship Transparency Assembly and sits on the board of directors for the Wall Street firm Pitts, Black, and Beckwith. Current Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Partnership Assignation Funds. “A good low-vis position,” Chertoff said approvingly. “But no. No.” It had come to Chertoff’s attention that this candidate had been bullying the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. If the candidate still didn’t understand that the key to undermining a CLPO was to give him no budget and no staff, then there was no hope for the candidate. He should be wiser. Next.  
Candidate two. This gentleman. Aged 40 years as of last month. He had potential. He checked all the initial boxes. BA, Harvard government. JD, Georgetown law. Good blood. Four years as a surface warfare officer in the Navy over a decade ago. A good foundation. “Let’s see more,” Chertoff said, the vapor from his breath hung in the still air. He tapped the index card with a pale finger. A stint with an Israeli think tank in Washington, D.C., in their Illicit Finance working group. Time spent with Treasury’s terror finance bureau. A master of finessing legalese to serve the aims of the Israeli and U.S. war industries. ‘Financial intelligence,’ he called it. He had recently helped guide Mexico City’s compliance with D.C.’s latest War on Drugs edict via one of Langley’s proprietary non-governmental organizations, The Institute for Financial Amenability. Now he sat as a senior fellow in Chertoff’s favorite Tel Aviv think tank. “We’ll see,” Chertoff grumbled, unhappy that no candidate so far was standing out.  
Candidate three. U.S. Marine Corps, Parris Island and Quantico grad. Enlisted to officer. A worker. BUD/S class 201, pre-MARSOC days. Promoted twice below the zone. Handiest with SEAL delivery vehicles and butter knives; he helped write the maintenance manual on the latest SDV model and was also a certified chef. BA at Auburn University. Ten deployments with the teams. Six months as Defense Liaison to British SIS. Sent home early for punching a Whitehall bureaucrat. Turned down a position at a D.C. think tank in order to help an old Admiral get settled at Tufts.   
“I don’t know how he packed all this in,” Chertoff commented earnestly on the man’s work ethic. He yawned. His flight for Boise left in a few hours. He could catch some sleep on the plane. He ploughed ahead with the task at hand.   
Candidate three ghostwrote an under-the-radar book on The Political Economy of the National Security Council, published by the University of Michigan Press. Chertoff leaned to his right. His boney fingers opened the blinds with the air of a surgical clamp. He looked across the Potomac’s still waters. The waxing moon was nearly full. The waters glimmered admiringly. “No, they’re all too visible. All too known.” He permitted himself the luxury of a chuckle. “Candidate three even tweets on a regular basis.” He smacked the folder against his right knuckles and then placed it on top of the other rejects. Chertoff picked up the fourth file. “Here we go,” he muttered.   
Candidate four. Delta vet. Spent much of his time overseas. Enjoys the Russian language as much as any novelist. Known to be quite taciturn. “This gentleman shows promise.” Avoided think tanks and the Beltway, remarkably. Overcame a steroid problem from his military days prior to joining Langley’s Special Activities Division. Laudable. An ardent Zionist, though he kept that close to the chest. Chertoff had found that out by carefully combing the candidate’s charitable giving. But, most importantly, reports indicated that the candidate had the desired traits Chertoff was after: independent, calculating, intellectual, thorough, and meticulously paranoid. Chertoff had been especially pleased when he was forced to spend extra time digging up information on the candidate. It told him the candidate covered his tracks well. Chertoff had phoned some old acquaintances in order to get a better handle on the candidate’s credentials. One old acquaintance had referred to the candidate as ‘a man who knows when to keep it off the books.’  
Chertoff bared his incisors.   
“I’ll invite him up next week.” Chertoff stood up. “And stress the candidate not put the appointment in any calendar. So no journalist can dig it up decades later.”   
He set aside the preferred candidate’s file and picked up the others. He walked out from behind his desk and nodded at the fireplace. He spent the next ten minutes crafting a meticulous pyre, the folders of the unworthy candidates reposed above the kindling. Task completed, he set firm the grate in front of the roaring blaze and dipped into the corner of the room in order to retrieve his cot. The frigid air buttressed his gaunt figure, and the cot’s metal frame was icy to the touch. The temperature difference between the area in front of the fireplace and the nearby corner was stunning. He liked both. He returned front and center to the fireplace, set up his cot with rote efficiency, and laid down for the night.   
“I’ll need to review all intel from the site of the strike,” he told himself. His thoughts settled as he awaited word of the airstrike. He closed his eyes. The right side of his body warmed up quickly in the fire’s glow.  
The landline rang. He sat up and smoothed out his tie. He walked over to his desk and opened the bottom right drawer. He tapped two buttons and then picked up the secure handset.   
“Chertoff here,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I see… I see… No matter… You may. We’ve been meaning to assess how the new package performs… That is correct.”  
He hung up the phone gently. He sniffed at the minor setback, cracked his thumb knuckle, and closed the desk drawer.

Southwest Asia

The call to salat al-fajr echoed off the cables of Abdoun Bridge in every direction. In the valley below, a pair of red foxes sprawled out behind a crop of warm rocks, all longing for the day’s sun. The foxes’ fresh eyes darted in all directions. A woman with kind violet eyes looked up at the crisscrossing cables as her vehicle snaked across the bridge. Beneath her coat, the lapels of tigerstripe camouflage brushed her neck. The first rays of the day danced across the tigerstripes and her bordeaux beret.

The Eurasian eagle-owl took off from the tallest spire. She glided silently, orange eyes focused intently. A long-eared hedgehog nibbled away at her favorite beetle in the nature reserve north of Al-Rashidiyeh. She never heard the owl coming.

The industrial-strength air conditioning inside a British Embassy raised goose bumps on the Duchess of Cornwall’s forearms. She adjusted her cashmere shawl and smiled politely at the Prince of Wales. He was hovering over a plate of croissants with an ornery eye. He selected a worthy sacrifice and then returned the smile to the Duchess. The couple looked north over the seafront from their aerie on the recently renovated eighth floor. The morning sun highlighted cirrocumulus clouds over Al-Manamah waters. To their east the USS George W. Bush floated quietly into port. Four RIM-162 missiles sat patiently aboard their vertical launch system. The Duchess turned to the morning’s honoree: Mary Hollis, philanthropist extraordinaire and wife of the current U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Dick Hollis. The Duchess walked over to Mary and embraced her warmly. “What a sight!” Mary exclaimed.


	6. Chapter 6

Washington, D.C.

“All it takes is one device. A personal voice assistant, a cellphone, anything,” Maya stated. She rolled down her window. The air washed over Art’s grief.  
“No personal voice assistant, but…” Art inhaled. “They had a laptop and a smartphone.” He pictured the worst: missiles strike the old church, the initial explosion killing most everyone inside, the rubble trapping any survivors. His heart told him to sit up, but his body disagreed. He worked on steadying his breathing, but only choppy shallow breaths ensued.  
Maya leaned over Art’s back and rolled down Art’s window a bit. The cracked glass didn’t shatter any further. Her elbow dug into Art’s back, kneading a knot.   
“It’s my fault,” Art repeated, his words echoing in the bathtub between his ears. “Who…?”   
“Who am I?” Maya completed as their front bumper clipped a parked car amid a particularly narrow lane.   
“Yeah,” Art said, mid-exhale, his chin on his left knee.  
“Just a friend,” Maya said. “Lame as that sounds.” She accelerated.  
“How do I know you’re not—”  
“Not planted to gain your trust and then screw you over?” Maya offered.  
“Are you going to do that all ride?” Art asked. “Cut me off,” he clarified.  
“Sorry. You don’t know I’m not double agent. Trust your instincts, is all I recommend. And rest. You’ve gone through a lotta trauma. Rest.”  
Maya cranked the wheel precisely, whipping the car around another bend.   
Art shifted his jaw to balance along his right knee. The sensation of the jaw’s pressure behind his ears somehow eased the ringing in his head a bit. He tried to clear sulfurous thoughts. The gang’s values lapped at Art. He mulled over what he had learned from them, especially their disdain for consumerism. “We own nothing of value,” Art mumbled, repeating one of the principles Kyle had told him during the morning in the garden.   
“What?” Maya asked.   
“Our ties, our friendship is the only valuable we have,” Art said, unintentionally screwing up the phrasing. His hands shook. He let them drop to the floor. They brushed back and forth along the mat.   
“I hear you’re the best,” Maya said. She reached out with her right hand and laid her index and middle finger on the knob of the old car radio.   
Art heard more skepticism than assertion in her tone. “I… am decent at my job,” he replied slowly.  
“No. From what I can tell, you’re one of the most promising counterintelligence officers in the Ri—, the Agency.” She rotated the knob to the right and adjusted the volume to just above a murmur.  
“Negative. I am still fairly new to this game. I monitor, mostly.” Art sighed deeply. “I don’t do… explosions.”  
“Do you enjoy it, at least?” Maya asked. “Your job.” She pushed a few of the preset buttons, but all presets came through as static. The car took a bump lopsidedly, sending Art’s right knee into the door. He sat up.  
“There aren’t many FM stations left these days,” Art observed, commenting on the conglomerates that dominated the media landscape. “Yeah, I guess I enjoyed it. Most of my colleagues from my class complain about the unbearable layers of bureaucracy,” he said, referencing his time in Williamsburg. “But Langley gave me a loose rein.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.  
Maya drove on in silence. After driving north over the capital, they met up with 66 West into Virginia.   
“So why are they tryin’ to kill you?” Maya asked, staying on track. “What gives?”  
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Art’s voice was calm.   
“You did something,” Maya assured.   
Art rubbed the right side of his head against the seatbelt shoulder harness.  
“Think.”  
Art closed his eyes.  
“Maybe you sniffed too close,” Maya surmised, dangling her words as a question. She looked over at Art.   
He stared at the dashboard. He didn’t trust her. Yet. He decided to change the subject. “Does this ride even have airbags?”   
“So why are they tryin’ to kill you?” Maya asked, staying on track. “What gives?”  
“Why should I tell you? I don’t even know who you are.”  
“Fair enough.”  
Art methodically checked his pockets. Planning to lay low for a while, he wanted a mental inventory of everything he had. He began visualizing what he’d need to pick up.  
Maya accelerated.   
Art sensed her tension. He reached out and turned off the radio. The click struck him as soothing. He tried to sit taller in the passenger seat. He managed to do so up until the point where his shoulder started grinding against his upper vertebrae.   
“Sounds smoother than normal,” Art observed.   
“What does?”   
“The engine. Are all old cars this smooth?”  
“Well…” Maya teased, smiling. “We’ve done some modifications on it, you could say.”   
Art looked at her quizzically.   
Maya changed lanes, remaining below the posted speed limit on the relatively busy road. She tucked their vehicle behind a silver government sedan going slowly in the right lane. The driver looked like he was texting on his smartphone.  
“Are you going to tell me? Or should I guess?” Art chuckled. His shoulder grated. He grimaced.  
“It runs on used cooking oil,” she said. “Greasy stuff, basically.”  
Art nodded and looked out the passenger window. Buildings belonging to some of the U.S. war industry’s most prominent corporations sparkled in the spiderwebbed glass.   
Maya suppressed a yawn. “What brought you back to the east coast?”   
“They called me back abruptly. At first I thought it was for my annual polygraph,” Art explained. He rubbed his eyes. “All of the sitting and lectures during training at The Farm didn’t prepare me for this,” he joked with a macabre growl.  
The sky grew darker. Suddenly, the government sedan in front of them came to life; red and blue lights rained forth from the vehicle’s visor deck and rear grill. The sedan sped off.  
Maya let up on the gas pedal until the tachometer fell slightly below 2. She reached down by her feet and retrieved a faded blue baseball cap as she turned into a gas station.   
“Pay in cash,” Art advised. “Wait, this puppy runs on gas too?”   
Maya donned her cap and coasted into the gas station. “No,” Maya said quickly. She drove by the pumps and parked on the far side of the lot, directly under the station’s green and gold corporate logo. She turned off the engine, placed the key on the dashboard, and relayed concise instructions.   
The driver’s side door had slammed shut before Art could argue. A grey ball cap, courtesy of Maya, rested on his thigh. A large maple tree bloomed across the way, one of the few trees left in these parts.   
Art looked back over his shoulder. He saw Maya hustling towards the convenience store. He turned and faced the road. Grumbling, he unbuckled his seatbelt and slowly finessed his way into the driver’s seat, staying below the dashboard most of the way. He wanted to scream out in frustration as he settled into the seat cushion; images of mum and the woman in wool slated his senses. He wrapped his temples with the knuckles on both hands, though his right arm didn’t respond well. He worried about having tuned out the pain, acknowledging he needed to get his shoulder looked at.  
“Pull yourself together,” Art chided. Focusing would help him get out of this mess. “Leave? Do I leave?” She’d given him an opportunity. “Oh, god damn it.”  
He donned the grey ball cap and descended from the vehicle, his mind stewing. He kept his head down, chin on shirt, and eyed a rubbish pile adjacent to the turnout near the main road. Three minutes of mediocre effort produced some of the items Maya had ordered him to retrieve before she had left the car. He pocketed the items, reminded himself to tuck his chin, and headed back to the car. His eyes scanned his surroundings from under the ball cap’s low brim.   
“I stay,” he told himself, shutting the driver’s door. “I stay with her.”   
He was emptying his pocket into the cup holder in the center console when a clinking shuddered the car. He turned. Maya was pouring the contents of a metal container into the vehicle’s fuel tank. She saw him looking at her. She winked in his direction, sealed the cap on the container and the cap on the tank, and entered the vehicle, stashing the container behind Art’s seat.   
She pulled out a bag from her pocket and pointed to the road. Art reached out for the ignition, winced, and turned on the car. The quiet hum of the modified engine pleased him.  
“Wait a sec,” Maya ordered, stopping Art before he could put the vehicle in DRIVE. “You’re in pain.”   
“It’s nothing,” Art assured.   
Maya leaned over the center console and came to rest nearly in his lap. Her hip settled between his legs, her back against the broad steering wheel. She reached around and touched his right shoulder.   
Art winced again.  
She cradled his forearm. Her fingernails brushed his elbow to his shoulder. They stopped at the knot near his neck. With a snap of her fingers, the sling came undone. She quickly coiled the thin rope and stashed it in her pocket. She rolled up his sleeve and observed a bluish forearm.   
“I need to get it looked at,” Art conceded.   
“Is it dislocated?”   
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”   
“One sec,” Maya said. “Lean forward. Bend at the waist. Keep your core locked.”  
“Ice, rest, and I’ll be fine,” Art asserted as he complied with her orders.  
Gentle fingers methodically probed his upper back, shoulder, and collarbone. “It’s dislocated.”   
Her whisper tickled his ear.  
“Please do not worry about it,” Art insisted.   
Maya put one hand on Art’s right hip and one to the left of his neck and pulled him into her. “Relax, okay?”   
Art nodded, fearful, but confident in Maya’s skills. She hadn’t let him down so far.  
Maya cradled Art’s right elbow in her left hand. She then leaned across his body and seized the rear of his right shoulder in the palm of her right hand. “Take a deep breath in.” She pulled slow and steady, aligning the shoulder to rearticulate.   
“Take another breath.”  
Art closed his eyes and began inhaling when—CLACK!  
He cringed, exhaling in excruciating sputters.   
Maya set him back against the seat as tenderly as she could. She reclined his backrest a couple notches before returning to the passenger seat. His eyes stayed closed.   
“Give it a sec. It’ll pass,” she assured.   
Art slurped air through gritted teeth. He lifted his right leg and pressed his heel against the dashboard.  
“D’you know this place used to be an apple orchard?” Maya asked.   
“Huh?” Art opened his left eye.  
“Tysons Corner,” Maya clarified. She leaned in once more and began to massage the thin ribbon of muscle next to his shinbone.   
Art closed his eyes, though the grimace had fallen from his face.  
She moved his trouser leg up and massaged his calf.   
“How do you do it?”   
“Do what?”   
“You’re so…”   
“Shut up,” Maya said, smiling but firm.

“Thanks for swinging by the store,” Maya said in sly tones.   
“The hell with that,” Art retorted, slinking down in his seat as he pulled back onto the road. “I know you’re leagues above me when it comes to spycraft, but that was a dumbass move. You were too exposed. All it takes is one vid—”  
“It was worth the risk,” Maya interrupted. “I wasn’t seen. Plus, I was hungry.”   
Art harrumphed softly at her joke, straightened out the wheel with his good arm, and checked his mirrors.  
“Did you get what I asked for?” Maya inquired, munching on a handful of crisps.  
“I walked along both sides of the street, like you asked,” Art said, lying. “But I couldn’t find a stethoscope or headphones.”  
“Then what did you find in the litter?” She dumped the rest of the crisps out the window. She then started licking the inside of the bag.   
“I mostly got a bunch of plastic scraps.” He pointed to the cup holders.  
“Not plastic bags, right?” She spread the crisp bag out across the dashboard.   
“Right,” Art confirmed. “I got a magnet. I got a—”  
“Damn! Imagine what you could’ve found given enough time.”  
Maya began picking through the contents of Art’s find. She stretched her shirt across her lap and placed several items on the cloth. She sifted through the discarded resources and the dirt and gravel. “Hmmm.” She grabbed two straws, what looked like the metal tab of a manila folder, and a playing card.   
“Take this road,” Maya ordered with an index finger.   
Art obliged, though he would have preferred a different route. Top of his class at spotting a tail, Art knew evasive driving took much more than an inconspicuous vehicle and a few careful turns.   
Maya reached into her pocket and added her store purchases—a new pair of headphones, a travel sewing kit, and some case Art couldn’t discern—to the mix. Soon, she had separated out the items she didn’t want and tossed them by her feet. She secured the selected items into a rucksack, which she had yanked from behind the driver’s seat.   
“How do I know you’re for real?” Art asked.   
“You don’t.”   
“How do I know this isn’t just some elaborate psychological operation?”  
“You know PSYOPS?” Maya asked. “Take a left here.”  
Art didn’t argue. He turned the wheel.  
“So Chertoff’s tryin’ to kill you.” Maya asked, staying on track. “But what I can’t figure out is why. And what does any of this have to do with the Chinese?”   
“Chertoff!” Art screamed. His roar quickly faded into a hollow sigh, one laced with frustration.   
“You didn’t know he was after you?!” Maya asked in disbelief.   
“Not really. I mean… I figured a character like Chertoff might have been involved, but it was just… I didn’t have any proof,” Art explained.   
“Why would he be after you?”  
“I don’t know…”  
“You did something,” Maya assured. “Somehow you managed to piss off one of the most ruthless pricks in the surveillance state.”  
He shook his head, once, slowly. He gave in to trust.  
“What is it?”  
“It’s nothing,” Art said, part sigh, part cough.   
“Ya lost me,” Maya encouraged.   
“As part of my counterintelligence assignment, I monitored the Chinese presence in the Bay Area,” Art explained. “Track and tack, I called it.”  
Maya listened attentively.   
“The Chinese Ministry of State Security was digging in deep. All of the tech startups and Silicon Valley giants were fertile ground for economic espionage,” Art explained. “The nuclear weapons labs run by the Department of Energy were also targets.”  
Maya nodded. She made brief eye contact with her rescue. Art broke contact immediately. “You’re a little young for that, no? All the best counterintel guys I know are in their forties or older.”   
“Yeah, well,” Art said, not sure how to respond. He continued. “My focus was on the Chinese, but I came across many foreign intelligence services operating in the Bay Area.”  
Maya rumbled, “Hmmm.”   
“In the course of my duties I came across a very subtle, very intricate Israeli espionage cell.”  
“Ahhh.” Maya made the connection.  
“Suffice it to say, Chertoff’s allegiance to Israel didn’t mesh well with my reports to Langley about Mossad crawling all over California.”  
Maya eyed him, eyes askew.  
“They even had a cell operating in western Washington. State, that is.”  
“What’re they doing up there?” Maya asked, readjusting her ponytail.  
“A major weapons manufacturer has a manufacturing plant up there,” Art noted.  
“Shit,” Maya said. She reached between her legs and scooted her seat up. She looked up at night’s dark sky. No stars. “Slow down to a quiet roll,” Maya ordered. She cracked her door.  
Art looked at her. He felt disgusted, then he realized why. The Tysons Corner district was everything he hated: shopping centers and residential high-rises.   
“Slow,” Maya repeated firmly. She opened her door fully when the speedometer wand sunk below ten miles per hour. “The CCTV software automatically flags any vehicle that stops along this road,” she explained, relaying quick instructions. She donned her rucksack in reverse—bag across her chest, straps across her back. She hugged the bag and hopped out, hitting the ground in a roll and stumbling headlong into the bushes.   
Art admired the sloppy execution, knowing he could’ve never done better given a dozen attempts. He accelerated and looked at his watch, recalling Maya’s instructions: return in seven minutes, south Old Courthouse Road, slow down by the red cedar.

Idaho National Laboratory

“Warmer than expected,” the elderly gate guard grumbled as Chertoff signed in. Chertoff handed him the clipboard and retrieved his government ID from the guard’s weathered hands. Hands testifying to decades of manual labor. Perhaps 11B, infantry, eventually earning 18C, Special Forces engineer.   
“Stop at the next checkpoint,” the guard grumbled, gesturing to the horizon. “You can’t miss it.”   
Chertoff nodded and accelerated gently. He pulled away from the gate and glanced in his rearview mirror. Thick, silver hydraulic barriers rose slowly from the ground. The guard limped back into his booth. Through the tinted windows, the guard mouthed instructions into a heavy radio.   
Eyes front, Chertoff coasted towards the horizon. The setting sun poked at his left eye, causing him to squint more than usual. Chiseled letters on a stone sign—NATIONAL SECURITY PROJECTS DIVISION—stood forth along a roadside of thorny shrubs. The second set of guard booths arrived shortly. Chertoff moved his ID from underneath his right thigh to his breast pocket. Many more security precautions were present, if unseen.   
The second gate was much of the same: a surly Army veteran, another round of identification checks, another clipboard. This time Chertoff was given a bright orange badge to wear at all times. He clipped it to his lapel.   
“Park in the far lot,” the guard said rapidly. His face was stone, and he smelled like aftershave, the kind found in a few old-timer barbershops. “The Director will meet you at the door.”  
“Thank you,” Chertoff said tightly. He accelerated towards the one story building in front of him. The rental car was behaving well so far.   
He parked and exited the vehicle, his trench coat trailing behind him like a cape.   
“Welcome to Idaho!” the Director, a tall white man with hairy ears and a mouth that never closed, shouted from the curb as Chertoff approached. They shook hands as Chertoff introduced himself tersely.   
Chertoff knew all about the Director: PhD in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; pioneer of Graham Labs’ robotic systems department; founder of a semiconductor company and early advocate of DOD using commercial off-the-shelf technology; former deputy director at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and a consummate self-promoter.  
“If I may, why did you turn down our private car service?” the Director asked as they walked to the entrance. His glasses danced along his nose as he spoke.  
Chertoff ignored the question. “I’ll be on the road shortly.”   
The Director didn’t miss a beat, going straight into a spiel about the facility’s construction and unclassified capabilities. The Director guided Chertoff into the building and they processed through another layer of security. The Director spoke throughout. Chertoff offered no reply, other than an occasional nod, which would send the Director on an even deeper dive into statistics about building size, conventional processor capabilities, energy usage, and maintenance costs.   
A black elevator door slid open smoothly at the end of a long hallway. Chertoff and the Director stepped inside. The Director waved his bronze badge in front of a blue light where a panel of buttons usually glowed.   
“Twenty-four,” the Director said.   
The elevator responded excitedly, “Twenty-four.” The voice was deep and friendly.  
The floor beneath them dropped slightly as the elevator descended. The change in pressure made Chertoff’s ears feel slightly clogged. The Director cracked his jaw. Wincing, the Director continued with his rant, “… over sixty-six million cubic feet of earth displaced during the second stage, though it cost the taxpayer a pretty penny. We hid that fee in just one day’s worth of spending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter…”  
Chertoff sniffed.  
The elevator doors opened and the Director led Chertoff down a concrete hallway of cool metallic flooring. They soon stopped in front of a glass partition on the right. Beyond the partition was a black space, the size of a large dining room.   
Chertoff saw not rows and rows of mainframes, but a dozen or so volcano-like masts arranged in a star pattern, offset along the far wall. They were connected with tubes and wires to a towering chandelier in the center. Visually crude, but no doubt efficient.  
“Here. We. Are,” the Director stated dramatically.   
Chertoff nodded.   
The Director shivered. “We keep it somewhat cold. Not too cold, though.”  
Chertoff thought about how the National Security Agency would use quantum computing to render modern encryption methods obsolete.  
“Charged atoms are trapped to function as qubits…” the Director stated.  
Chertoff thought about how quantum would advance DARPA’s already state-of-the-art patterns of life analyses using real-time, high-resolution satellite imagery.  
“Apply the voltage quite carefully…”   
Chertoff thought about how the Homeland Security Council would use quantum computing to map U.S. cities in order to effectively squash acts of domestic dissent several steps before the populace could gain critical mass.   
“It’s a modular design, you see…”   
Chertoff thought about how well the Israelis might use quantum computing to definitively pinpoint the underground bunker of the new secretary general of the Party of God.   
“… solution was DNA storage. The three-dimensional nature of DNA allows us to store much more data—”  
“Activate it,” Chertoff interrupted.   
The Director chuckled nervously. Chertoff stared straight ahead at the center of the star pattern. The Director swallowed. Chertoff blinked.  
“We were told this was just a routine tour,” the Director stated.   
“There’s nothing routine about today, or the threats we face as a nation,” Chertoff replied swiftly. He placed an open palm face-up on the ledge of the window in front of him. The Director looked at it, puzzled, en guard.   
“Activate it.”  
“But—,”the Director began to argue.   
“Stop. I’ve read your reports. It’s ready. You’ve done your job.”  
“Sir,” the Director faltered. “S-sir, technology like this… It should be placed in the hands of an international body. No single government should monopolize this kind of power.”   
Chertoff looked the Director in the eyes. The Director immediately averted his gaze, away from Chertoff’s sunken eyes and glacial sway.  
Trembling, the Director mustered one final objection. “Sir, the top scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project advocated for nuclear technology to be placed under control of an international organization in order to avoid devastating war. The bureaucrats in the Pentagon defeated those scientists, and humanity has dodged several nuclear crises ever since, the majority of which the average Joe knows nothing about. Please, please don’t make the same mistake.”  
“Activate it,” Chertoff said. The decision was final. He backed away for five steps, keeping an eye on the Director. “I’ll meet you out front. Our supervisory team will be here by the end of the duty-day.” Chertoff’s words throttled the hallway’s cold concrete. He spun rapidly, produced a bronze badge from his inner breast pocket, and glided toward the elevator.

Tysons Corner, Virginia

“He needed a firm grip in order to plow his lady.”   
“Who?”  
“The monkey.”   
“Damn, man. You okay?”   
“Yeah, it’s healing well.”   
“It looks good, to be honest.”   
“It was a lot more swollen right after it happened.”   
“I still don’t know how they managed to get busy on your head.”   
“They were only on my head and shoulder for a bit. I shook them off after a couple seconds.”  
“You takin’ any meds?”   
“Nope. The doc gave me some anti-bacterial cream and some eye drops.”   
“Shit. I wonder what kind of nasty ass stuff is under a monkey fingernail.”   
“I don’t want to think about it.”   
Maya put down her earpiece. “We’re good,” she said with a chuckle, happy that the glut that was the privatized mercenary industry necessitated low entrance standards for security guards. She tucked her gear into her rucksack and slid off into the conifers.  
“Are you sure we’re okay?” Art asked, trailing behind as they circumnavigated the guard shack at a distance of several meters. He curled his bicep and tested his bad arm. The pain was icy and steady.   
“Are you sure he’s not home?”   
“Will you…?”   
Art understood ‘cut it out’ from her silence.   
“I’m sure,” she said. “What do you think I was doing with the junk food bag?” she asked rhetorically. “Plus, I’ve been on this for a while.”  
Confused, Art stayed mute. He tried to keep his head on a swivel, looking for a roving sentry while also avoiding the evergreen boughs.   
Maya stepped quickly yet tenderly through the young conifers. Art was impressed with her agility. Was there anything she’s bad at? Surely she had some weaknesses.  
“Here.” Maya paused.  
“Those shrubs will cover us to the rear porch?” Art asked.  
“Yes,” Maya whispered. “We’ll enter through the porch.” Maya pulled a small rectangle from the front pocket of her rucksack.   
“Looks like a garage door opener,” Art noted softly, eying the small rectangle in Maya’s hands. He thought about what it would take to subdue an approaching sentry. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that; he had one functioning arm and barely a half-day of hand-to-hand combat during case officer training at The Farm. 

Cold. It was all so cold—the ambiance rather than the temperature.  
“Stay to the left,” Maya instructed. “Keep to the kitchen and the study.”  
“Understood,” Art said. He stepped into the kitchen as Maya closed the porch door firmly behind her. She ducked into an adjacent closet.  
Art heard the squeak of a small hinge.   
He waited patiently in the hallway, happy to give his eyes more time to adjust to the darkened condominium.   
Maya surfaced from the closet. She followed up behind him, her firm, gentle hand on his right shoulder. Art kept his eyes forward, but he pictured her brandishing a sidearm.  
“I numbed the smart meter,” Maya whispered as they turned the corner, now facing the study from the kitchen. “Jesus.”  
“Have you ever seen so many orchids?” Art asked. The plants, all sizes and colors, lined the walls, clustered mostly next to the curtains along the south wall. Art looked closer. They were arranged with the intricacy and care normally reserved for decorations of valor.  
Maya shuffled something behind him and then stepped forth. “No.”  
“Smells great, though,” Art added. He eyed the kitchen—all surfaces and appliances grey metal, concrete, marble, or lifeless plastic.   
Maya stepped lightly through Chertoff’s kitchen. “Is this what you’d think it’d be like?” she asked, staring at the light fixtures above the island countertop.   
“I don’t know. Even the orchids feel cold.”   
“Yeah,” Maya concurred softly.  
“Why are we here?” Art asked, half expecting to see the vapor of his breath.  
“We’re just browsing,” Maya said with the casual delivery of a customer at a clothing retailer.   
“What’re we looking for?” Art stepped down a level into the study, appreciating the open floor plan while keeping away from the thin tapestry covering the center floor. Tired leather furniture circled a crystal table. The study felt a little warmer; a globe glowed gently on the top of a glass bookcase in the far corner, though it hardly warmed the sharp and slightly sterile atmosphere. A black and white portrait of a man hung above the desk to the right. The man’s hair was parted to the side. The knot of his striped tie was small, meticulously centered. He struck Art as a no-nonsense man.   
“Something, anything,” Maya replied.   
Art looked over at Maya. She was standing at the edge of the tapestry in the middle of the study. Her mouth ajar, wiggling to the right and left, she was scanning the room slowly, methodically.   
One big puzzle, Art assessed Maya’s approach to this mission. One big puzzle. She viewed the apartment’s infrastructure as nothing but potential. Potential for the owner to hide something and potential through which the infiltrator might move. Her study of the building’s exterior had told her much about the layout of the interior. Now that she was inside, she’d work hard to take it all in and map it all out. Exhaust systems, elevators, emergency exits, and boiler rooms offered shadows, slicks, blind spots, outflows, alcoves, tunnels, and manmade knots.   
“Hold this,” she said, tossing Art her tight rucksack.   
She leapt from the hardwood floor to the thick arm of the leather couch. Balancing on her tiptoes, she placed her palms on either side of the vent that ran down the middle of the broad ceiling.   
After muttering something, she hopped back down and jogged into the kitchen. “What else do you notice?” she asked as she passed Art.   
“No family pictures,” Art replied. “Unless that old guy counts.”   
“Precisely. No pictures of himself either,” Maya said, her words echoing off tinny walls.   
Art walked towards Chertoff’s desk. He glanced into the kitchen on his way, catching sight of Maya, again on her tiptoes. She was standing on the concrete countertop on the island in the middle of the kitchen, reaching up into the steely exhaust hood above the stove. He returned his attention to the study and walked the remaining three paces to the desk. It was spartan and neat. It was also the only part of the whole apartment so far that showed any signs of use: the blotter on the desk boasted ink stains and frayed edges; concentric rings on the top left marked a coffee mug’s frequent home; bits of wax flecked the far right of the desk. A row of Russian classics sat at the top of the desk, flush against the wall: Казаки, Идиот, and Мёртвые души among them.  
Art stepped back and examined the shelves above. One stood out to him. It was offset and higher than the other shelves. The shelf itself was thicker and darker. Designed for books of great import, Art determined. A leather-bound copy of Cabbages and Kings stood front and center. He heard light footfall upon the cold kitchen floor. A squeak brought his attention to the step between the study and kitchen. Maya stood there with a white piece of plastic in her hand.   
“What is that?”   
Maya smiled. “Let’s check the bedroom and then get out of here.”   
“That’s it?”   
“That’s it. We’re almost done.”   
Pivoting towards her, Art said, “He’s a fan of Russian novels.”  
“D’ya know how paranoid Langley’s Counterintelligence Staff is ’bout Russian penetration?” Maya asked.  
Art shook his head, eying Maya framed against the kitchen.  
“They’re so clueless about the reasons behind their own dismal performance in recruiting a GRU or SVR official that they insist the reason must be because a Russian mole is lurking somewhere in the bureaucracy,” Maya explained.  
“I see.”  
“When in reality Langley’s own bureaucracy and the fact that they’re defending the indefensible is why they consistently fail at recruiting a high-level Russian intelligence official.”  
“Defend the indefensible?” Art asked.  
“CIA defends and promotes capitalism. Their mission itself is indefensible. Their very reason for existing is brutal,” Maya said.   
Her delivery struck Art as happy, almost joyous, despite her words’ grim content.   
“C’mon!” Maya said, unmistakably bouncy.   
Art walked up to meet her on the step. An orchid caressed the hem of his shirt as he passed. He felt uneasy. “Capitalism…” His heart pounded.  
Maya didn’t budge. She was appraising him, his posture and expression.   
“Please, tell me what that is,” Art asked, pointing to the white piece of plastic rolling around in Maya’s hands.   
Maya tossed him the plastic piece. “Follow me,” she ordered.   
Art caught the piece and pocketed it casually, well aware that he was trying too hard to exude a relaxed demeanor of a veteran snoop, a demeanor he knew she wasn’t buying. Art followed her into the bedroom. They surfaced in less than twenty minutes, having searched the closet, dresser, walls, bedframe, and mattress thoroughly.   
“It’s just the top to a USB drive, no?” Art wondered aloud. He tossed the plastic piece back to Maya.   
Maya caught it with a snap of her palm as she stepped up into the kitchen. It disappeared into her back pocket quickly.   
“So what were you doing with the potato chip bag?” Art asked. He was confused about so many events and happenings.   
Maya looked at him and wiggled her eyebrows.   
“I think we should leave,” Art stated firmly.   
Maya pulled out the potato chip bag from her front right pocket and pressed the foot lever on the kitchen’s trash bin. She laid the bag softly across the top of a pile of coffee filters and polystyrene take-out containers.  
Art shot her a quizzical look. He stopped short. Instead of berating her over lax operational security, he thought for a moment.  
“Gotta let the watcher know he’s being watched,” Maya explained. She then described how she had reconstructed audio signals by measuring the sound waves that bounced off the potato chip bag.   
“Effing voodoo champ,” Art muttered, in awe at the skillset she had developed outside of Langley’s tutorage. 

Maya led him back to the porch through which they had entered.   
“What was in the hood over the stove?” Art asked   
“A state-of-the-art computer system…” Maya began.  
“State of the Art,” Art chuckled, probably trying to find an outlet to defuse his nerves or his lingering pain.   
“… which we now own,” Maya concluded. She gestured for Art to follow her. She was gone in the blink of an eye. He hustled after her, adopting a half low-crawl, half crab-walk technique, which got the job done but looked horrendous. He must still be in pain.  
“Why orchids?” Art asked once he had caught his breath amid the densest section of conifers.   
Maya dismissed him blankly, her mind planning, plotting.  
“Really?” Art prodded. He sounded offended. He looked left and right rapidly.  
With a palm slowly descending to the ground, Maya motioned for him to calm down. Art took a deep breath.   
A sentry—beefy, black uniform, corporate logo on his shoulder—toddled towards them. His sidearm ticked twice against his thigh with each stride.   
Maya held her breath. “Why orchids?” she mouthed rhetorically. The question was sinking in.  
The sentry pivoted sharply, following the same path Maya had observed him take earlier. His routine, or sloth, was her advantage.   
“Would you shut up about the orchids?” Maya asked belatedly, once the sentry was out of earshot.  
Art kept one eye on the guard shack around the bend.   
“Outstanding survival instincts,” he said.  
“Huh?” Maya took off for the far row of trees.   
“Jesus,” Art said, scrambling after her.

Western Virginia

“What’s the wildest piece of information, intel, you’ve ever come across?” Art asked. The air inside the car felt damp.  
“Why orchids?” came Maya’s unrelated response.  
“Good survival instincts,” Art catechized. His eyes tracked the trees flying by the car.  
Maya inflated her cheeks and made a swishing sound.  
“Outstanding instincts,” Art corrected. He listened to the road beating quietly below them.   
Maya took a fork left, crossing a stretch of overlapping roads and train tracks. She accelerated rapidly, chasing the dark sky west.  
Art ran over recent events in his head—getting saved by his former student, receiving refuge in the old church, and meeting Maya. He was tired. The back of his head ached. His throat tickled. His shoulder burned, but its range of motion was returning. He leaned forward and rested his arms and forehead on the dash. He thought about the wonderful humans he had met along the way, especially Paul, Kyle, and mum.   
Catching himself nodding off, Art grumbled and perked up. “How so?”  
“How so, what?” Maya asked.   
“How do orchids have outstanding survival instincts?” Art inquired.  
“I don’t know,” Maya conceded very slowly.  
“They misrepresent themselves to survive,” Art replied slowly. He gathered Maya did not like not knowing something.  
“They misrepresent themselves to survive,” Maya repeated, soaking in the words. Her voice struck Art as soothing.   
Art opened the glove compartment. He was beginning to feel good about the icy pain in his right shoulder. An array of neatly packed supplies spread out in the soft light: a pistol, two magazines, parachute cord, a compass, flint, and a black pouch.  
“They play on insect sexuality. They provoke the wasps that land on it. They provoke the wasps into stabbing,” Art said. He closed the glove compartment, leaned back in his seat, and looked out the window.   
“Maybe that’s what Chertoff’s doing now?” Maya suggested, her left eyebrow rising.  
Art rotated a full ninety degrees in his seat in order to face Maya.  
“Unlikely,” she comforted. “I read his smart meter remotely before we entered. All indicators—lighting patterns, fridge usage, hot water heater—told me he’s been away from home for a couple of days now.”  
“I just—,” Art began.  
Piercing percussion.   
Violent vacuum.   
Shattering silence. 

Art tried to inhale, but coughing erupted. His ribs stabbed with each howl. He forced himself to stop; the pain of singed lungs and raw ribs was too much. He rolled onto his back after one final heave. The weight of his chest caused him even more pain. He rolled onto his side again. Spittle coated his chin.  
Leaves? Yeah, leaves, he determined, trying to figure out what was brushing against his forehead.  
He kept his breath rapid and shallow, just enough to maintain awareness. All he could hear was his own breathing—muffled silence coated him, like he was a Guantánamo prisoner in sensory deprivation. He focused on raising his head, but it barely responded. It crashed into the leaves, as if a netherworld fiend had whipped his brow with a leather strap and yanked him back down into the crunchy torment.  
Blips of Maya’s corpse wrapped around a tree nettled his vision. If I am alive, she is dead. No way both of us survived.

Northeast Virginia

Chertoff’s assistant appraised the restless duo in front of her. They were former SEALs, current Grough mercenaries. One man had blond hair cropped high-and-tight. One had jet-black hair in a bowl cut. Patches of skin cordoned off his ears as if soaked with pesticide. Both men flaunted chiseled physiques, and both sported lengthy tribal tattoos down their arms. Both rocked the same black short-shorts, their ample thighs gunning for daylight. The blond wore sandals. He was known to do so, well into the winter. His black-haired partner wore expensive assault boots with the laces undone.   
They waited, visibly perturbed—mouths pursed and feet tapping—as she processed their paperwork, a task that was supposed to be simplified by the clunky ‘enterprise interoperability requirement’ recently mandated by the Defense Health Agency. She had refused the clunky IT ‘solution,’ preferring to collate the hard copies by hand, a decision that Chertoff had supported.  
She thought about the term ‘alpha male.’ Yes, these men mostly had type-A personalities, but did the analogy hold up? She mused as she sorted the paperwork into six stacks, three for each mercenary.   
Wolf color ranges from a dazzling white to a salty grey, while SEALs are predominately white (though almost all are heavily tattooed these days). Wolves usually hunt in packs of seven or eight. Growing up, a SEAL boat crew also numbers seven. Both wolves and SEALs thrive on solid, resilient social bonds. Wolves primarily hunt large, hoofed animals, while SEALs primarily prey on brown people. The brown Arab was once considered a Special Warfare delicacy, but now is served at every banquet.   
“Fuck this!” the black-haired Grough mercenary fumed.   
“Easy,” Chertoff’s assistant encouraged.   
“No, this is bullshit! We should be out there. We should be in the fight.” His neck muscles boiled.   
“Nobody’s confining you here,” Chertoff’s assistant noted. “Let me get your paperwork in order, and then you’re free to go.”  
She eyed the folder marked NAVAL MEDICAL LOGISTICS COMMAND Fort Detrick quals in front of her.   
“And how long is that going to take?” the blond Grough mercenary asked, his voice leaded with sarcasm and pity.   
Chertoff’s assistant swallowed his comment, chasing the comment with the wisdom of experience and foreknowledge. She bided her time well.  
The blond brought his fist slowly down onto the conference room table. He pressed it into the laminated surface until his whole forearm was flat against the table.   
Chertoff’s assistant smiled, conceding that he was in fact an attractive man. Alpha male wolves and alpha female wolves are monogamous, often pairing off and mating for life. SEALs, on the other hand, keep partners and spouses with varying success. The young studs often try to keep females here and there. Some pull off monogamy, but even the most dedicated marriages often end in divorce, both parties blaming the deployment schedule.   
The blond mercenary stood up. “I’m taking off the leash,” he said, walking towards the conference room door.   
Chertoff’s assistant said calmly, “I’m almost done.”   
The blond mercenary leaned against the wall next to the door.  
“Let the SIGINTers do their job, though,” she advised. “You’ll get your turn.”  
She slid two sheets, an original and a copy, into the relevant tab of a red folder marked BUREAU OF MEDICINE & SURGERY, PALO ALTO, SPECTRUM, SUSTAINMENT.  
Wolf pups mature over the course of ten months. Sailors take years to mature into competent operators. Wolves once flourished in the continental United States, though again they are threatened due to over-hunting. SEAL veterans, on the other hand, are thriving in a militarized society, though they cluster on the east and west coasts and Hawai‘i.  
Lining up the final collation of paperwork, stapler in hand, she caught the top lip of the evening moon peeking through the only window in the conference room. She daydreamed of her imminent retreat, her upcoming vacation one might say: Her canoe paddle cuts into the inky waters under night’s broad moon. Bothered by her paddle and roiled by the canoe’s wake, a thick congregation of marine plankton emits a gorgeous teal blue. To track this food source, a few flashlight fish ascend, which she erroneously pictures as one that once guided her favorite video game character. The flashlight fish utilize their own allies, their own bioluminescent bacteria, to better navigate and hunt. Diablo Rojo climbs from the depths around midnight to prey on the flashlight fish. He returns to the sea’s depths long before dawn can color the waves or capture his profile. A piece of fish trails from his powerful beak. A patient shark smells the procession from afar. A seal notices her and darts from the scene, navigating by a lodestar towards prime hunting grounds.  
Chertoff’s encrypted smartphone buzzed in his assistant’s pocket, bringing her back to the present. With a practiced thumb, she slid open the app known as ICCC, Intelligence Community Cache Comms. ICCC, pronounced ick, took a moment to update to the latest version. The secure messaging app, from a war industry mainstay based in Carlsbad, California, transmitted to her the latest information.  
“UAV strike confirmed,” Chertoff’s assistant relayed to the Grough mercenaries. “See, boys,” she lectured, knowing her condescension would only anger them more. “In a few more years your ground-and-pound services will be rendered completely obsolete.”  
The blond mercenary stormed out of the conference room.  
Chertoff’s assistant stacked the collated files in order and handed them to the other mercenary. She nodded to him, skipped out of the conference room, and powerwalked down the desolate hallway.

Western Virginia

Ignoring the shrapnel in her right thigh, Maya grabbed a fistful of Art’s collar and guided him through the grit and smoke. Her ruck rode high and tight on her shoulder blades. She surveyed the scene as they stumbled across the road. The hood of the 1979 coup was vaporized. A charred divot gaped where the engine block once stood.   
Maya fell, her shoulder scraping the trunk of the car as she wobbled around the vehicle. Pain jolted her right leg, the epicenter somewhere above her knee. She locked her leg as metallic rays berated her vision. Consciousness was precious.  
Darkness bushwhacked her peripheries, caving in her vision, the pressure behind her eyes reaching a boil. She dove head first into the underbrush. Art slipped from her clenched fist. He now crawled close behind her.

Art discerned a glade in the distance. He scrambled to his feet. The slightest physical exertion sowed agony in his head. He coughed again, timing his steps in order to overlap the twin pains of coughing and walking. We can rest there for a second, he thought. Hopefully the bog is warm enough to conceal us from the forward-looking infrared that undoubtedly circles above.  
“New missile type,” Maya speculated.  
“Huh?” Art asked. The collar of his undershirt hung tightly on his nose.   
“They could’ve blown the car to smithereens with a traditional twenty-pound warhead,” Maya noted.   
Art assumed she’d watched many high-resolution feeds of drone strikes—Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia, surely. Where else? Syrian, Central African Republic, Niger, the Philippines, Colombia, Mali?   
“This is something new. Something different,” Maya assessed.  
The realization struck Art mid-crawl: D.C. was now testing weaponry stateside on its own citizens.

Maya coughed and re-donned her ruck. Black rectangular edges framed her vision. The adrenaline she had felt after the strike was wearing off.  
Art clenched and released his fist, testing the bandage around his forearm. “Impressive dressing,” he complimented, looking up at the double canopy.   
“Dunk,” Maya ordered, submerging herself in the bog.   
Art followed suit, keeping his forearm slightly above the water’s surface.   
Maya coughed deeply upon surfacing. “I think I—”  
“Inhaled too much smoke?”   
She nodded between coughs. Green algae draped across her brow. Something brushed by the back of her right hand under the water. Exhaustion and nausea harangued her head.  
“I don’t hear anything,” Art whispered, pointing up.  
She stared to her right. Outline of their smoldering car glowed deep reds and yellows in the distance. “We need to move.” She crawled out of the bog, stumbled forward, and collapsed.

Footfalls over leaves and wet branches woke Maya. She looked around without moving her head. A shape, bigger than Art, lurked beside the tree at three meters, seven o’clock. She moved her head slightly, imperceptibly. This relieved some of the tension on her extraocular muscles. The shape slunk towards her rapidly. It moved like a human wavelength in the dark.   
“Come wimme if you wanna survive,” the scratchy voice whispered from behind.  
“Fuck you and your Hollywood one-liner,” Maya replied, steadily unfolding her pocketknife concealed in her left hand.   
“Dis ain’t no bullshit. ‘Dem g-men are out in full force wit’ state troopers in tow,” replied the scratchy whisper.   
“I’m fine, thanks,” Maya replied.  
“Last chance,” the scratchy voice said firmly. “You dead meat once dey get deir chopper out here.”  
Maya extended the pocketknife fully. The blade clicked in to place.  
“These are our woods. We can protect you.”  
Maya brandished the knife in front of her chest, and said, “Your move. I’ll follow behind.”  
“Stay low,” the voice replied. Its owner rustled ten meters southwest and circled around the edge of the bog.   
Maya tapped Art on the shoulder. “We move.” He was on his back, his knee jutted out to one side. He didn’t reply. He just rolled over, crawled forward, and followed Maya’s lead.


	7. Chapter 7

McLean, Virginia

Donna scratched her right calf muscle with the heel on her left stiletto as she hiked up her dress a bit. The swampy air in Alsop’s Bar made Donna’s favorite number cling in all the wrong places. She pushed forth a practice smile, which she had once nicknamed ‘submissive housewife entertainer,’ as she looked around at the patrons. All of them are dressed alike. “Like penguins,” she whispered to herself. She tugged at the hem hugging her cleavage in the hope that a miraculous breeze would make its way down there. Suddenly, ice-cold relief rocketed up her spine. She turned around slowly. Her husband Richard removed the frosty mug of lager from her back. He brought it to his lips, savoring the beer, imported at great cost from Yorkshire’s oldest brewery across the pond. He handed her an identical glass.  
“How was your lap around the bar?” Donna asked, stepping back into his bubble.  
“Pretty good,” Richard replied. “Just thinking we should take a vacation soon. Three ops in three days...”  
“Yeah, things’ll calm down soon.”  
“Yeah,” Richard agreed.  
“When things settle a bit, where do you want to go?”  
“Let me see how many vacation days I’ve accrued at Valtin, then we can decide. But for now, let’s hang a bit in this corner.” Richard placed the frosty mug on his wife’s back once more.   
“Please,” Donna said in agreement. “These heels are killing me.”  
Richard stepped back farther, hunkering into the dim corner. Donna followed suit. Over her shoulder, she admired the way the polished teak molding framed Richard. He looked rugged. No. Weathered, she corrected. Weathered and sexy.  
“What’re we going to do?” Richard said after a bit, enunciating and keeping his voice just loud enough for Donna’s ears only.  
“About what?” Donna replied, lips a breath away from the rim of her glass.  
“The… walk-in,” Richard said.   
Donna touched her glass to her cleavage. The walk-in, a senior contractor from one of the premier U.S. war corporations. Rejected first by the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue, the contractor had then made his way to the Belarus Embassy on New Hampshire Avenue.   
“I don’t like it,” Richard said as the wheels turned in Donna’s head.   
“His bona fides were decent,” Donna noted, referring to the nearly two hundred pages of copies marked TS/SCI.   
“But why bring photo copies? Why not a flash drive or portable hard drive?” Richard wiped some suds from his scruffy upper lip with the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.   
Donna shrugged slightly. She methodically walked herself through one possibility: the walk-in could be a plant designed to help D.C. break our codes. When the cryptologists and communications specialists at the Russian embassy send wireless transmissions, NSA intercepts them, of course. Since NSA may have helped Langley supply the walk-in’s documents, they’d know the contents. They’d be in a good spot to work out the code beneath our encryption. The very code we use to communicate with the Byelorussians.  
She decided not to stress too much about it. The walk-in wasn’t her immediate concern; she had to remain focused on observing tonight’s celebration.   
“How do they know the Russian embassy would broadcast wirelessly?” Donna asked, as if reading her husband’s thoughts.   
“Shit, Fort Meade’ll scoop up the signal no matter where,” Richard whispered. “They’ve got the underwater cables tapped too.”   
“No, I mean how are they sure we’d not just put it in a diplomatic pouch and send it back with one of our envoys?”  
“Too time-sensitive,” Richard speculated. “They know SVR’s appetite for this kind of stuff.”  
Donna shot him a stare, lightning in a bottle. For a split second, her scalp retreated a centimeter, conveying her consternation in the blink of an eye. Then all was well. Her demeanor was sultry once more. She nuzzled his chest with the tip of her nose.   
Richard received the hint: do not whisper those letters in public again.  
Donna turned around and clinked glasses with her husband.   
“They’re kind with our loose leash,” Richard said appreciatively.   
“They are, but for god’s sake shut up about it,” she said beneath a delightful smile.   
Richard refused to stay quiet; he just lowered his voice. “I just wish the Defence Minister wasn’t such a goof. Dude always ignores any intel that conflicts with his own opinions. A horrible trait, indeed.”  
Donna was further taken aback at her husband’s casual reference to the Russian Defence Minister as ‘dude.’ She knew Richard was accurate in his assessment—she’d even assert that the Defence Minister always believed, erroneously, that information obtained openly was not as valuable or correct as information obtained secretly—but these topics were rarely discussed and only reserved for their private basement sessions. She did her best to steer the conversation back to the topic of concern.   
“Maybe the walk-in is just in it for the cash,” she suggested.   
Richard smacked his lips and finished his lager. He caressed his wife’s shoulder with the well-manicured fingernails on his free hand.   
“We should mingle some more,” Donna said as she eyed the Deputy Vice President for Intelligence, Information, & Services at Grough Defense. Surrounded by office sycophants at the other end of the mahogany bar, the Deputy Vice President took advantage of the dim lighting to pile on a few extra flirtatious gestures.   
Richard and Donna sized up the object of the Deputy Vice President’s desires, a youthful intern with jet-black hair who wore a tight silk blouse. ‘Naughty librarian,’ Richard had called the intern’s style during the ride into town.  
Donna knew the young woman’s appearance was no mistake; the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure had done its homework, driving past the Deputy VP’s home—a stunning $3.8 million dollar estate in Falls Church—several times over the past few months. On the third pass, DGSE had remotely scooped up the Deputy VP’s browser habits using a device called Clanshark. Repeat passes and careful analyses had yielded the piece of information they desired: the Deputy VP’s favorite pornographic actress, a black haired vixen who had stunning green eyes and a penchant for formal dress.   
The Deputy Vice President leaned in and caressed the intern’s necklace made of lustrous gemstones.   
Donna glanced up at Richard. They had speculated how long it had taken DGSE to find the right match—a woman who resembled the pornographic actress—on local U.S. college campuses. Undoubtedly, Richard had concluded, it had taken even longer to arrange the proper carrots and sticks to get the young woman to apply for an internship with Grough Defense. Wiggling her way into the celebration at Alsop’s was the easy part.   
Donna smiled at her husband. He smiled back at her. Neither spouse had anything to do with the French operation, but they knew they could learn much by monitoring it closely. A French aerospace conglomerate and Grough Defense were both in the running for a lucrative cost-plus contract to supply the Pentagon with next-generation communications gear to be used on guided missile destroyers.   
The Grough Defense intern looped her pinky finger into the Deputy VP’s belt, using it for stability as she leaned over the bar to order another round on the company tab.   
“Impressive,” Richard noted.   
Donna snickered, put her drink on the nearby railing, and opened her purse. Inside the purse, she typed numbers onto a thick cellphone, heavily-modified. “Let me check on the kids and then we can take another lap or two.” 

“Sounds good,” Richard said loudly. “I’m going to take a leak.” He picked up his wife’s glass off the railing and walked to the bar. The crowd was thick. He laughed to himself; the phrase ‘take a leak’ had been one of his favorite idioms when he began mastering the English language decades ago during the most advanced portions of the Illegals Program, Нелегальная разведка, run by SVR. He set both glasses on the bar and gave the bartender a thankful nod. The bartender smiled. Richard left a generous tip, but not so generous as to be remembered.  
Richard emerged from the restroom three minutes later, bladder empty, and mind cleared. He often did his best thinking at the urinal. His wife, the mask of enjoyment straining on her face, walked somewhat briskly to his side, grabbed him by the elbow, and guided him out of the bar. Richard knew not to say a word. He knew the abrupt departure would be explained to him shortly. The dark, heavy door closed behind them with a soothing THWUMP as they walked into the gentle night air.   
“We have to go home first,” Donna explained, mid-thought.   
“I see,” came Richard’s kind reply. He withdrew the car keys from his pocket. “Do you want to drive?”   
“We’ll both be doing a decent amount of driving soon,” Donna said, grabbing the keys and opening the passenger door for her husband.   
Richard kissed his wife tenderly, cupping her jaw with both hands before stepping into the car. Donna closed the passenger door just as Richard’s right leg made it safely inside. Richard leaned over and unlocked the driver’s door. Donna skipped around the back of the vehicle, careful not to skin her leg on the exposed edge of the license plate, and hopped into the driver’s seat.   
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Donna said, starting the car. The classic engine rumbled. She then explained to her husband that they needed to drive west.   
“It’s gotta be tonight?” Richard asked.   
“It’s gotta be tonight,” Donna replied.   
“What’re we going to do about the kids?” Richard asked.   
Donna looked over her left shoulder, glanced at the side-view mirror, and pulled into the stream of nightfall traffic. 

Connecticut

“Can you pass the salt… please?”   
Rear Admiral Jonathan Worrell picked up the salt and pepper shakers with a broad mitt. Though the kitchen table was small and quaint, he stood up and walked the shakers around the table to place them beside his wife.  
“Thank you,” his wife, Britt Worrell, said with a sniff. Never moving her head, she blinked long and hard and reopened her puffy eyes.   
“You’re welcome,” Admiral Worrell whispered. He placed a consoling hand between Britt’s shoulders. She recoiled into a scrunched carry.  
Admiral Worrell took the cue in stride and returned to his seat. Three bites of meatloaf left; he was determined to savor each one. He pulled a hair from his first bite, blew on the second bite with two puffs, and choked down the third.  
An upright posture slowly returned to Britt, like a worn armchair freed of human encumbrance. Britt raised her fork to her mouth and left it hovering in front. Her grip remained firm, though her hand bobbed slightly, like a loitering cargo ship on the high seas.   
Mouth full, Admiral Worrell paused mid-chew in order to place his knife ever so gently on the plate. Satisfied that he hadn’t made any noise, he started up his jaw once more.   
Britt took a bite, finally. Replenished, she let her fork drop. Admiral Worrell acknowledged the clatter with a lopsided grin aimed at the glass of water in his right hand. He stood up and cleared his plate. Returning to the table to tend to the rest of the dishes, the heel of his slipper crunched over the sandy fragments adjacent to a broken dish.  
“I’ll clean it up,” Admiral Worrell said, assuming the tone he’d take with a churlish bullgeorge. He walked back to the sink the same way, crunching the debris a little slower this time. He soon disappeared into the pantry, emerging a moment later armed with a dustpan and brush.   
He let out a solitary sneeze as he swept up his wife’s exploded ordnance, fragments of an ornate platter Britt had purchased in Rota, Spain, back when the Admiral was just a young Lieutenant. The dish was intended to serve chicharrón, but it also worked well with a sloppy meatloaf. Admiral Worrell placed the three main pieces of the platter to the side as he cleaned up the rest of the shards and dust. He then fit the three main pieces together, contemplating how he might glue it back together. It retained its shape well, the scene still clear: almond drupes curled over a deep blue field, plump bumblebees dancing about.  
He looked up at Britt. She retained the same look she had worn throughout their meal. The thousand-yard stare, Admiral Worrell called it. Brush and dustpan in one hand, large glass pieces in the other, Admiral Worrell creaked to his feet and walked out of the room.   
The house echoed familiar groans as the Admiral stepped into his study. Three paces to the record player. Four more to the desk. A piano sonata drifted into the cold hallway between the kitchen and the study. 

Western Virginia

Maya woke up in total darkness. She immediately initiated a checklist of her senses, a process she had developed on her own and implemented when training like minds. She inhaled deeply through her nose. Subtly splendid vibes of repurposed woods flooded the area just behind her eyes. She prided herself on having a discerning snout, as she’d say. She widened her eyes, and moved them slowly back and forth without swaying her throbbing head. She perceived firm, dense shapes about three feet away. Rafters, perhaps. Maybe part of a bunk bed above. Centimeter by centimeter, she moved her hands away from her body. Her right arm soon made contact with wood. A wall? She spread her palm and ran her fingers over the surface. Smooth wood. Firm and dry. Slightly dusty or flaky. Her left arm extended into space. Up and down, she felt nothing. She slowed her breathing and stopped moving her arms, focusing on hearing any sound. A low hum emanated beyond the wall to her right. A generator maybe? A refrigerator? She waited.   
Her head blared. Last night. Last night? The missile strike. She pictured the interior of a ground control station, flat screens overwhelming walls like an invasive virus. She began to whisper to herself, her words helping order her thoughts and process them slowly. “Maps with many overlays. How did they pick us up? Chance or practice? Chance or efficiency? They usually don’t have drones flying beyond the major urban areas. Chance, then.” The pilot and sensor operator would be accustomed to the relatively ‘target-rich’ environment of missions in U.S. Africa Command, Southern Command, or Central Command. On those missions, the sensor operators had overlays that aggregated data from past missions. “But I’m gonna say the U.S. Northern Command missions don’t have a huge stock of overlays, or much National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency data, seeing as NORTHCOM was only recently declared an area of active hostilities. But they’re working on it.” She noticed her heart was racing. Her dark vision blurred. “Get ahold of yourself. This speculation’ll have to wait. First things first.”  
Patience gave way. She needed to explore. Maya swung her legs off the edge and eased down to the floor. Acute pain ripped through her right thigh. She locked her leg. Better. Tolerable. Ignoring the pain, she examined her rack. Her bedding was higher than an average bed, but lower than a top bunk would be. All senses engaged, she felt her way around the room. She let her toes massage the wooden floor with each step. Three laps later, Maya had mapped the room well in her mind: bunk beds in each of the four corners, only one made up tightly, chests at the foot of each bunk, her rucksack tucked by the foot of her bed, and a wash basin and pail in the center of the room. “One more lap,” she told herself, “just to cover all my bases.” Nearing completion of the final lap, having passed three of the four bunks and all the wall space in between, she heard a groan coming from slightly below eye level. She approached the source, a hitherto hidden figure among the blankets on the top of the fourth bunk.   
“Hello?” Maya whispered.   
The dark shape groaned again.   
“Art?” Maya whispered. Her voice hoped against hope that the figure was Art, and that he was healthy and whole.  
“Effff meeeee.”   
Maya smiled at Art’s unmistakable tenor. “You alright?”  
“I miss my books,” Art replied.   
Maya laughed, appreciative of Art’s attempt at humor.   
“No… My head,” Art said, seriously.   
Maya approached the top bunk and felt for Art’s hand. Her fingers brushed up against a bandaged forearm.   
“Gentle,” Art said amid a few coughs. “I think I’m okay.”  
“Where are we?”  
“I have… no idea,” he replied. “I want to roll over, but my head is…”   
“Rest,” Maya ordered. “Imma figure out a few things.”   
Art’s hand grabbed Maya’s hand, pinching all of her fingers together into a boney bouquet.   
“What?”   
“Please be careful,” Art said. “Don’t tell them anything, don’t give away your hand, don’t—”  
“I got it,” Maya assured. She gently massaged the damp hair on his head for a few moments and then pried his grip off of her scrunched fingers.   
Art laughed softly and rustled the covers. Maya pictured him shimmying down into the blankets. She turned and walked slowly, steadily, toward a faint rectangular outline a couple meters beyond the foot of the bed she had woken up in. Several moments of patting the wall yielded no doorknob, so Maya began systematically applying pressure along the inside of the door’s outline. The wall gave way as she made her way horizontally waist-high across to the left-hand side of the glow.  
Light hints of a Baroque cello and harpsichord crackled in the dim hallway. A lone candle smiled on a small shelf on the wall directly across the hall. Maya looked both ways before stepping out of the dark room, which she assessed as equidistant between a closed wooden door several meters to her left and an open wooden door on her right. She stepped into the hallway. The floor was compact dirt. Leaves were sprinkled on top. She closed the door—a smooth hook made of polished stone bloomed where she’d normally find a doorknob—and walked slowly to the open door to her the right.   
“Please,” a soft voice guided as its cloaked owner pitter-pattered past her. The voice struck Maya as young and light. The cloaked figure skidded to a stop outside the open door at the end of the hallway. The figure leaned into the door, looking like a velvet doorstopper, when the door began to give way. She stood at attention with her back against the door, holding it open. She gestured with an open palm for Maya to pass.   
Maya limped toward the doorway. The music’s volume increased with each step.   
Maya tried to peer into the youngster’s hood, but the figure let out a gleeful yelp, jumped up and patted Maya on the head ever so lightly, and scampered back down the hallway.   
Maya entered the room. Brick walls surrounded warm, scuffed, wide-panel floorboards. The air felt toasty on her face, but Maya couldn’t discern a fireplace or any heating system. A giant green door stood out along the far wall. An elderly woman wrapped in a scarlet shawl sat at a broad table surrounded by benches and rickety chairs, the only furniture in the room. The elderly woman looked up and greeted Maya with a motherly smile. “Was that little Maya out there?”  
“Huh?”   
“Was she playing games again? We encourage her to play and interact at her own pace.”  
“That young girl’s name is Maya?”   
The elderly woman nodded, still smiling merrily.   
Maya met her, smile for smile.  
“Welcome,” the elderly woman greeted. “Please, have a seat.” She patted the bench next to her.   
Maya sat down tenderly. The music, which Maya perceived was floating down from the ceiling, seemed to pick up in both tempo and volume.   
“Can I get you anything?” the elderly woman asked, pulling out a leather-bound book from inside her scarlet shawl.  
“Where am I?” Maya asked with a chuckle.  
The elderly woman scooted toward her and leaned her head against Maya’s shoulder.   
Maya again laughed softly, not sure how to behave in the exceptional circumstances.  
“Where do you think you are?” the elderly woman asked.   
Maya realized the woman hadn’t introduced herself.   
Maya was about to ask for her name when the woman said, “I don’t mean to be cryptic. I’m just wondering if you can figure it out.”   
“I’ve no idea,” Maya said quickly.   
“Well, you’re still in Virginia, and that’s what’s important,” the elderly woman said, adjusting her shawl so there was no gap between her fuzzy neck and the warm garment. She stood up, left the book on the table in front of her, and patted Maya on the shoulders with forgiving, timeworn hands. “I’ll be right back,” she stated, and glided out of the door through which Maya had entered.   
Maya sat up a little taller, cracked her back by pivoting smoothly left and right, and then let out a long sigh. She eyed the leather book next to her. She wanted to head outside to get her bearings. But almost immediately men and women of all ages and shapes began piling into the room. Each, surprised to see Maya, stutter-stepped a bit or altered their course to walk past the unfamiliar face. They smiled lovingly and patted her on the head as they walked by. Maya returned the smiles and sat still, respectfully. She appraised her new captors, or friends. The only traits they all had in common, as far as Maya could tell, were their pleasantly simple dress and ceaseless smiles. After patting Maya on the head, they buzzed around the room like healthy bees—chatting, bumping, and hugging. Even as they began to sit, they kept up a bumbling drone, which Maya interpreted as joyful exchange of knowledge. What knowledge, Maya could not determine.   
The large green door along the far wall creaked open. The droning subsided and all eyes looked up under colorful shawls, hoods, and high collars. The door creaked shut, but nobody looked away. The elderly woman returned from the hallway door and sat down next to Maya. She palmed Maya’s right shoulder and pulsed three squeezes into her muscles.  
Maya caught her heart beating faster. She was almost as transfixed as the others.  
The large green door creaked open once more.   
Maya sat up a little taller.   
A stocky man dove through the crack, which was just wide enough to accommodate his big bones. He was dressed in layers of red, yellow, and magenta. He moved like an alley cat, slinking and ducking his way to the head of the table. He sat down. His curly coffee hair cascaded into a bushy beard. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.   
“Why are you here?” the leader said through a soothing exhale. He opened his eyes, kept them straight ahead, and pivoted his neck to make eye contact with Maya, operating all the while as if he had not a rush or a care in the world.  
Maya met his gaze. She looked him over again. His beard fanned out from his face, like someone had spent hours ironing the bottom. “You know why I’m here.”   
A ripple of whispers ringed the table, bouncing conveniently around Maya’s position.  
“What brought you to our home?” the stocky leader said. His beard waved with the movement of his lower jaw.   
“I am helping a friend,” Maya stated flatly. Based on his register, Maya judged that the stocky leader was not their rescuer back at the bog.   
“His injuries are not as bad as they seem,” the leader stated. He reached inside his cloth folds and pulled out a pen. The elderly woman reached out and palmed the leather-bound book in front of her. She pulled it into her body and then pushed it rapidly towards the leader. The book slid smoothly along the surface of the table. Maya admired the table. It seemed to be made of all scrap wood and fallen branches, but she couldn’t figure out how it was held together. The book came to rest right in front of the leader. He open the book, flipped through a few pages, stopped precisely where needed, and jotted down a quick note. He holstered his pen and folded his hands in his lap. His outer garments floated around him like settling foliage. The book’s pages settled where time deemed them most comfortable.  
“Are we free to leave?” Maya said, testing the waters.   
“You may do as you wish, though I advise against leaving right now.”   
Maya pursed her lips and took her time weighing her options. Her captors or hosts did not strike her as aggressive. Her scalp retreated in thought. What’s the catch? it said.  
“All I ask is that we keep your electronics safely secured until your departure.”   
Maya said coldly, quickly, “No problem.”  
“Please call me T,” the leader said, spreading his hands in a welcoming gesture.   
“My friend, he’s thirsty,” Maya stated. “I’d like to bring him some water.”  
The elderly woman placed her palm between Maya’s shoulder blades. “I just did,” she said without looking up. “Fresh bandages, too.”  
“Thank you,” Maya replied, her eyes still locked on the leader.   
“Your injuries were all minor,” T informed. “Stay away from running or any heavy activity until that gash in your right thigh heals.”   
“Good idea,” Maya agreed. She allowed herself to wonder about her own injuries. Sure, she had a roaring headache, but she could deal with that. She flexed her right thigh. Several inches itched and burned along the surface outside the gash. “If you don’t mind me inquiring,” she began, startled at the formality of her own speech, “who are you all? Are you from here?”  
“What do you know about Grough?” the leader replied.   
“Grough?”   
“I know you know them. The conglomerate. Known mostly as a war corporation. One of the Pentagon’s go-to contractors, for everything from construction and base operations to information technology and cyber. Grough.”  
“I know them,” Maya replied. “I just… What do they have to do with anything? With us, I mean.” Her head rang loudly. She cautioned herself not to push herself too hard too early.  
“Land,” the elderly woman whispered.  
“They want to confiscate our property. Eminent domain, the Pentagon says,” T explained, again adjusting his cloaks. His chin settled over a russet patch that blended perfectly with his beard.  
“Why?” Maya asked. She broke eye contact with the leader in order to survey the people sitting around the table. They were all still smiling, like the bad news had no effect on their overall happiness.   
“We call it expropriation. Their legal terms are for the birds. No offense to my winged friends. Grough just wants our land to build a new weapons testing ground.”  
“Seems like they’re adjusting their military industrial infrastructure to compensate for the inflation and higher oil prices,” Maya speculated.  
“Precisely,” the leader said. He paused, glanced up at the ceiling, and then allowed himself a broad smile.   
It warmed Maya’s heart. She caught herself smiling in return.   
A fit, short woman with ear-length cherry hair slipped through the big green door. No heads turned except for Maya’s. The woman walked over to T and leaned in for a warm embrace. She kissed him on the cheek along the border of his bushy beard. Maya wondered if she was marking her territory. The woman quickly whispered something in T’s ear. He responded with a rapid shift of his eyes, breaking Maya’s gaze. He quickly recovered and reconnected with Maya. The cherry-haired woman gave Maya a genuine, kind smile as she turned and walked back through the green door.   
“We have many diverse allies, but also many strong enemies,” T said.   
Maya caught a hint of a Texas accent in his voice.  
“Same with my friend and me,” Maya replied.   
“Please stay, heal, as long as you want. But, like I said, it is unwise to leave right now. Grough mercenaries and the FBI have this place nearly surrounded.”   
“Thank you. And thank you for saving us.” Her puckered face told onlookers that she loathed relying on others for help. Quickly realizing it, she wiped any disdain from her face and rallied with a smile. “Do you think I am a permanent target?” she asked, using a phrase popular with the war industry and its think tanks. The phrase euphemized rebel commanders or major dissidents who resisted D.C.’s military operations.  
T’s shoulders waved like a rough sea. He looked down. “We doubt it. We haven’t seen any increased drone activity in the area since we brought you here. If you are a permanent target, they haven’t found you yet.”  
“You’re pretty vigilant observing them?” Maya asked. She blinked away visions of bureaucrats, flight suits, and private contractors in jeans mapping her known locations across time and space.  
T shrugged evasively. “We’ll keep you informed if anything changes.”  
“What are you going to do?” Maya asked gently, blinking hard. “Long-term, I mean.”   
T looked to the far end of the table. Maya followed his sightline. Art walked slowly into the room. The elderly woman next to Maya bolted up from the table and crackled to his side like an aged lightning bolt. Maya stood up gingerly and walked to Art’s other side. She supported his armpit, careful not to bump into his bandaged forearm. They led Art over to the table and sat him in a creaky wicker chair two seats down from Maya’s position. A young man with dark skin, kind eyes, and a brown t-shirt had just vacated the chair. With a thankful chortle, Art eased into the fluffy purple cushion. The young man helped push in Art’s chair. 

Art turned his torso towards the motherly woman who had recently given him water and changed his bandages. He croaked, “Do you know who’s after us?”   
She nodded as she sat down.   
Maya took a seat.  
A foliage-clad man with a bushy beard replied, “We got a good look at the wreckage when we snuck out of there with you two. There’s only one government in the world that uses that type of projectile matched with the drones we tracked overhead. The question is, do you know who’s after you?”   
Art turned slowly and looked at Maya. She nodded.   
“Yes.” Art stopped, winced, and touched the bandages on his forearm. “My guess is Langley, supported by Grough mercenaries. But the specifics we’re still working on.”   
Maya swallowed quietly and gently massaged the tissue around her thigh wound.   
“I’m T, by the way,” the man with the bush beard said to Art. He waved a meaty palm. Art appraised him as a natural leader, a man of many pasts and green thumbs.  
Art looked around the table. Everyone exuded the quiet confidence of those born and raised in rural hardship.  
“Can I ask you something?” Art said.  
T nodded.   
“With all our—mkhmm, their—advanced data visualization techniques, aren’t you worried they’ll just use an intent fold to find me? Find us?”  
“Intent fold?” the elderly woman asked softly.  
“A computer-designated track marking the route a person is expected to flee—”  
“That type of technology wasn’t around when I was in.” The choice of temporal adverb fell on Art’s ears softer than the initial part of the sentence.  
“Colorful lines,” Art explained, mid-wince. “The darker the hue, the greater probability the route will be taken by a vehicle or a person on the ground. Percentages indicated by a ticker in the bottom right-hand corner.”  
Maya wore upturned lips.  
“We can’t know anything for sure,” T said, shoulders once again roiling, his cloak taking it in stride. “Beyond… Those who built and approved such warfare will be held accountable.”  
The young man in the brown t-shirt returned to the room with a big smile on his face. A tray of small fluffy towels in his hands, he walked around the table and offered one to everyone.  
“Please,” he said, stopping behind Art’s right shoulder.   
“Thank you,” Art whispered.  
“Poultice,” a young woman said from across the table.  
“Thank you,” Art whispered again, meekly, healing comfortably.  
The young woman across from Art giggled. Art looked up. She had a gap in her teeth, bushy eyebrows, and wore a tight navy blue vest. Art felt oddly at home.   
“Stay. Heal.” 

Paris

“Confirmed,” Wisam said.   
“Many thanks,” Chertoff replied. The crackly relief of an encrypted Ka-band receiver on a C-20 aircraft punctuated Chertoff’s words.  
This uncharacteristic courtesy caught Wisam off-guard. His finger stutter-stepped along the smartphone panel as he hung up. He leaned forward in the plush settee before hopping up, towards the terrace for a view of the garden below. Even though he was on the south end of the hotel, he could still hear the characteristic din rising from the Rue Saint Honoré. A din like no other. A sweat-stained silk cushion fell forward in his wake. He shed his damp jacket and tossed the merino sheep wool onto the floor. His pinky toes relished the sumptuous carpet.  
He caught a glimpse of himself in the eight-foot mirror lining the far wall as he stepped out onto the terrace. He told himself he had aged well. No longer a young fighter pilot, Wisam was now a mature political operator, fourth in line to rule the kingdom.  
Sure, he had made his mistakes: too many mansions and too many women in disparate locales; too cavalier in accepting bribes from London to expedite arms deals with Carlton Gardens’ favorite war corporations; and one too many hangovers after his legendary D.C. soirées; not to mention once driving 130 kilometers per hour the wrong way down the Champs-Elysées.  
“So it’s done,” Wisam told himself. “Done.” All that worrying during the TGV ride from Bern… all for nothing. Mossad had received the monies, Chertoff’s operations would be funded for months, and Wisam could rest easy and count on the continued backing of one of D.C.’s best.  
The Swiss arm of ITCD Banking Group had been especially helpful. Of course Wisam never had to mentioned Mossad, or its current financial director, Tamir Cohen; a nineteen-digit account number and its corresponding twelve-digit security code had sufficed.  
He thought of the Mossad katsa with whom he had lunched last week, the man who had brought him back into Chertoff’s fold. He knew relatively little of the katsa: born in north Africa, perhaps Tunis, in the early 1960s; spoke Arabic and French with ease; an early advocate of the periphery doctrine in which Zionists would cultivate allies in nations located just beyond the Arab countries adjacent to Israel, turning enemy states into compliant regimes; and as thorough in his preparation as any other Mossad officer.  
He respected the fluidity with which the bankers had operated. A quiet sit, a handshake, a number typed, a security code transmitted verbally, a discreet exit.   
“Mistakes are in the past,” he said, murmurs begetting murmurs. These next few years would be the peak of his redemption. His confidence grew. He was thirsty. He walked slowly back inside, plucked an eight-ounce plastic bottle from a bucket of ice, and returned to the terrace. He took a sip.  
Though a few knew about his mistakes, even fewer knew about his successes, his greatest moments forever remaining behind the scenes: helping fund the Contras in Nicaragua, an early move that ingratiated him with D.C. élites; keeping a few surly members of the royal family silent in 2006 as Israel slaughtered Lebanese civilians; laying the seeds for closer rapport with Pakistan’s ISI; out-maneuvering a weasely minister or two; and cherishing the perks of many ambassadorial posts along his mighty rise. He applauded himself. He’d even given up cigars and Cognac. He licked a few beads of water off of his patchy beard.   
“Enough reflection. Too much reflection reflects weakness,” he said, hammering out a makeshift proverb as he went. He pushed these thoughts out of his head.   
“A walk in the Jardin des Tuileries will be nice.” He rose from his seat.

Western Virginia

“What do you think?” Maya asked Art as she closed the door to their quarters. Three candles stood on the floor next to the nearest bunk bed. The floorboards basked in the cozy light.   
Art walked over to his bunk and noticed it was freshly made with colorful sheets and dark blankets.   
“Sleep over here,” Maya said, patting the lower mattress of the bunk next to the door.   
Art bundled up the blankets and walked slowly to the bunk. “I feel safe,” he said, undoing his belt buckle and waist button with one hand. He leaned back on the mattress as Maya grabbed the legs of his trousers and pulled them off. The waistband of his boxers rode down to his hip, exposing a patch of pubic hair in the candlelight. Maya quickly stepped sideways and caught Art’s head as he reclined. She cradled his neck—her thumb supporting the base of his head—and eased him onto the pillow. Her eyes lit up, reacting to the way the shadows danced along his face.   
“Rest… like T said,” Maya whispered.   
Art looked up and made eye contact with Maya. He shuddered.   
Maya bent over and blew out two of the candles. She picked up the third and placed it on the post next to the pillow on the top bunk.   
Art closed his eyes. He heard the telltale zip of her taking off her trousers. He couldn’t remember if she was wearing jeans or khakis. He took deep breaths and basked in the rush the oxygen provided his brain. He heard a few splashes coming from his left. Maya washing up in the pail in the center of the room, he assumed. He slowed his breathing as he heard another piece of clothing fall to the floor. Then the bed creaked and began rocking slightly as Maya’s feet ascended the rungs above Art’s head. The creaking diminuendoed into a taut squish as Maya slid under the sheets and settled down.  
“You know I know…” Art began. It was time to tell her. “I know who you are.”   
Maya stopped wiggling in the bunk above.   
Seconds stretched to minutes.   
“I know you know. I know you think you know.”  
“I’m not passing judgment,” Art assured. The term SDGT bubbled to the forefront of his mind.  
“How can you pass judgment when you don’t know the whole story?”  
“You’re SDGT, Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” The final word stood rank on his tongue.   
“Be careful,” Maya stated. Her voice rested somewhere between a hostile whisper and poised testimony. “You know only what they tell you.”   
“I know,” Art affirmed.   
“You know what?” Maya asked. “And when did you put together that I am the Maya.”  
“I—”  
“Slander is one of their tactics,” Maya cautioned.   
“I’m not passing judgment,” Art repeated.  
“Langley so thoroughly dominates the media landscape that all it has to do is yell the word ‘terrorist’ and the people line up in support of the Agency or the Pentagon or whatever imperial organization is—”  
“I believe you,” Art declared.   
“You believe me? You believe what?” Maya retorted. “What exactly?”  
Art took a deep breath. “Your actions… I can’t find anything terrorist about them.”   
“Well, you’re already miles ahead of the average citizen, the average citizen scared shitless in their own country…” Maya trailed off.   
“If they catch you,” Art warned. “They’ll do anything… everything…”  
“Don’t worry about me. I’m at peace with my choices.”  
“I—”  
“No,” Maya corrected. “I love my choices. I do what is necessary. Period.”  
“I support you,” Art sustained, immediately displeased with the patronizing tone of his voice. “I mean… I support you.”   
Maya shuffled her legs above him. The creaking bed brought him back to the tender emotions he had felt before broaching Maya’s past, Maya’s wanted status, Maya’s standing as an enemy of the state.  
“I see,” Maya said, putting D.C.’s denominations to rest. “Tell me,” she posed, “if you were fleeing north, what would you worry about?”   
“That we haven’t already discussed? I’d say… automatic number plate recognition.” Art closed his eyes, squeezing the lids hard.  
“Well done,” Maya complimented. “ANPR devices are posted at most major interchanges. Definitely every at tunnel.”   
“But shouldn’t we be okay?” Art asked.   
“We can never be too careful. Our pursuers might be on the lookout for every stolen plate headed in a certain direction. Their reach is broad,” Maya cautioned. “And, with all the special access programs out there, who knows how good their forgery detection equipment is?”  
Art concluded, “I’ll ask about our wheels out of here.”  
“We stay for one day, no more,” Maya said, notes of authority returning to her voice.  
“Sounds good,” Art said, too exhausted or too wise to argue. “We also gotta be careful of Caragrip,” Art added.   
“You know of it?”   
“Yeah, my first mentor at Langley was one of the guys who hosted them when they were just an Israeli start-up.”   
“And where there’s Israeli start-up, there’s Unit 8200,” Maya noted.  
“You can say that again,” Art said with a sigh. He knew facial recognition software was one of many technologies developed to control and oppress Palestinian society.  
“That’s one of those products marketed as ‘full spectrum,’ no?” Maya asked.  
“I can hear it now,” Art replied. “We encode facial appearances in proprietary image descriptors and train state of the art machine learning algorithms…”  
“To predict personal traits, capabilities and online behaviors,” Maya finished.   
Art chuckled grimly.   
Maya cracked her lower back.   
Art smiled. The sheets rustling above comforted him. His comfort soon faded. He thought about Caragrip’s technology: capable of ingesting and analyzing facial expressions, pupils, jaw position, and gaze of the eyes; as well as undeclared capabilities to evaluate heart and respiration rates, body movement, and changes in body heat and voice pitch.   
“Last I saw,” Art stated, “they tallied what they called ‘nodal points’ on any given face…”  
“Nodal points?”   
“Yeah, like the distance between your eyes, or the length and width of your nose. Stuff like that.”   
“Cool,” Maya whispered sarcastically.   
“Combined with algorithms and a huge database of images to learn from and refine their product…” Art trailed off.   
Maya blew out her candle.   
“Your irises…” Art stated. “They looked like tree roots in the candlelight.”  
“Goodnight, Art,” Maya replied brusquely.  
“You know Grough Defense just acquired Caragrip in an all-cash transaction?” Art said quickly, nonchalantly playing off Maya’s response.  
“No…” Maya said after a moment of reflection.  
“I heard it on…” Art paused. “Well, I heard it yesterday.” Or was it two days ago? Images of their vehicle careened around his mind’s eye, the engine block gaping like a pimple popped and charred. Chertoff was testing a new weapon? Or deliberately dialing down the explosive charge to match the area of operations?  
“One day,” Maya affirmed, looking to the future. “We leave in one day. Maximum.”  
“The state’s viciousness can never kill our imagination’s creative weight,” Art said buoyantly before dozing off.  
“They can sure as hell try,” Maya whispered.   
Art’s snoring, recalling wind sweeping crisp leaves over frost heaves, reached under the door and out into the hallway.

The bookcase, which cut relief into the stone foundation, fascinated Art, while his broad shoulders and upper back gazed over the simple underground garden of industrial hemp, leafy greens, and herbs. He recognized and accepted that time slowed down for him as he healed. Time slowed down for all who stayed in this place. He heard footsteps on the salvaged timber floorboards above. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. The bandage along his temple crinkled but remained in place. The remains of a lingering headache dispersed slightly. Giddy aromas of cedar, rosemary, and citrus massaged his mind.  
“I hope our humble home has treated you well,” T said, the stone catching his jolly voice quite well.  
“I love it,” Art replied. He eyed the titles and grazed his thumb over a hemp manuscript. He sniffed the words of the author, previously unknown to him. He re-shelved the manuscript and hiked up the bandages on his forearm.  
His thoughts over the course of his rest had solidified two major conclusions: the powers that be in greater Washington, D.C., fight any actual societal progress, and murder any truly effective progressive leaders. He mulled these suppositions over, but could find no flaw in their logic; history swaddled truths with accuracy.   
Art exhaled. He realized he had been holding his breath.   
“Jesus,” he muttered. He inhaled anew and looked to the west end of the recessed bookshelf. He massaged the spine of one Michael Parenti classic. Some of Parenti’s wisdom nestled snugly between his ears: most of the world is capitalist, and most of the world is poor. He appreciated the candor.  
T stepped forward next to Art, who, in the next breath, smelled T’s musk—a mixture of fallen leaves and decaying branches.  
“Our disconnection from nature is our biggest enemy,” T said in soothing tones.  
“It’s the source.”  
“It’s the source,” T repeated, affirming Art’s assessment.  
Art patted T on the shoulder. His own shoulder felt much better, having benefitted from poultice and two massages in the last eight hours.  
T grasped Art’s hand, pinning it down. T stepped back one pace and rotated Art away from the wall. They pivoted and then walked in tandem, like two lionesses in the arc of a hunt. Unfamiliar with T’s customs, Art went along for the ride. He was impressed with T’s agility and sense of space as T guided them under the rows of lights into the center of the underground grow room.   
“You don’t exactly seem like a fervent Agency guy,” T commented, slowing his pace. “Why’d you join?”   
Art kept his feet in step with T’s cadence. “I guess I always considered myself more of a State Department guy. Culture, not coup, I used to say to myself.” He dove further into what had been roaming his mind, information his parents had planted in him long before he had entered government: Wall Street, for the Agency; the Agency, for Wall Street. That was the key.   
“Admirable intentions muddled in Agency culture?” T asked.   
Art had to think over T’s words before replying, “Yes.”  
“You know why the organization exists,” T observed. “I can see it in your face.”  
Art summarized what had been on his mind. “There will never be any progressive change in this country, because the system exists to protect and promote capitalism. If you try to change the system in a meaningful, positive way, the surveillance state, one or more of its agencies, will monitor you, infiltrate your movement, discredit you, and shut you down. One way or another. These organizations exist to save the status quo, promote capitalism, and protect Wall Street.”  
“Well said,” T stated. “You’ve given this some thought?”  
“I guess I’ve had some time to think while resting.”  
“Is this why you’re helping Maya?”   
“What do you mean?”  
“This war is bigger than Chertoff, bigger than your current battle.”  
They arrived at two piles blooming large from the woodchippy earth.  
“I wish I saw more of this out there,” Art commented, looking around at the various plots of earth and raised garden beds.  
“Their sickness is ours,” T muttered.  
“Their sickness is ours?”  
“Not just the war industry, the most obvious sickness,” T began. “But also the general disconnect from nature among the humans roaming above.” T looked up and through the eastern portion of the foundation.   
“Their sickness is ours,” Art said, a little more firmly this time around.   
“Indeed. Ours. We must heal our self… While not fearing a natural death.”   
“What’s death got to do with it?”   
T shook off his question. “All you have to do is get it started,” T counseled, “and nature will do it for you.”   
“I don’t understand.” Art’s teeth ached. He shifted his jaw, inhaling, hoping some fresh air would ease the pain still firing behind his molars.   
“You don’t have to. That’s the beauty,” T explained.   
Art scooped up a small mound of mulch and held it in his hand. He raised the treasure to his face. The stubble on his chin brushed against the biomass. He peered at it, wearing the glittering grin of a pirate appraising loot. A lone earthworm emerged from the handful. Art winked at it and gently spread the mulch atop the nearest raised bed.  
“We really are all one,” T stated firmly. He shook his head suddenly, in a broad sweep, as if brushing away a clutter of dead spiders. “Okay, here’s our job this afternoon. These piles are a combination of woodchips, compost, and a little late kitchen debris. We take them and sprinkle them on top of the soil of the beds. Just like you did.”  
Art nodded. Straightforward enough. But where was everyone else? A contemporary take on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played randomly in his head.   
“Do you think, if we could go back to just after World War Two, we’d be able to alert the citizens of this country to the dangers of keeping a standing army and a rampant, growing war industry?”  
Art’s question loitered in the air.  
“Didn’t Ike try?” T said after several moments.   
“One farewell address?” Art asked. “That’s hardly trying.”   
“Hmph!” T smiled. “You have a point there. But let’s not dwell on it, dwell on the ultimate regret.” He raised a shovelful of mulch in the air.  
“Yeah.”  
“Plus, you really want to time travel to the past where you can’t change the past, since the past had already happened?” T showered a bed adeptly, mighty forearms rapidly shifting the shovel from side to side.  
“I don’t understand,” Art admitted. “Again.”  
“No worries.”   
“Where is everyone?”   
“Some are studying,” T said, raking out the freshly laid mulch with his curved fingers. “Others are venturing outside. Some say there’s been a break in the drone coverage. Some say that break was not a break.”   
“You riddle me this way and that,” Art said, intending it to be a compliment.  
“Ha!” T bowed towards Art.  
Art was grateful that T had taken his words positively.   
T slowly inserted his shovel in the bigger of the two piles. “All of our biological energy is produced from the sun,” he instructed. “Plants snag it from the sun and turn it into glucose. Even fossil fuels were once decayed plant and animal matter.”  
Art muttered something under his breath.  
T laughed. “What?”   
“Nothing. I’m just losing my marbles.”   
“That’s good,” T said. “Lose them and start fresh.”  
“Do you think they know? Do you think they care?”  
“They?”  
“Yeah, they. People who are born into capitalism and bred into the war machine.” Speaking so candidly felt invigorating, almost scandalous. Art liked it. “People who are in so deep that they’re unable to see or even consider the error of their ways. They.”  
“I don’t know,” T said, finishing with a quick sprinkle. He paused and leaned on his shovel.   
The shovel looked older than some of the trees outside. “You know, we always demonize those…” He trailed off. “No, allow me to correct myself.”  
“Take your time,” T said, handing Art the shovel. T got down on his hands and knees and began to slowly, delicately lift mulch from the pile and spread it onto a bed.  
“I said ‘we’, but I want to take that back. So, D.C. and military commanders throughout history always demonize the enemy as a savage,” Art asserted, recalling the lessons of history books, “but those who are completely cut off from the wilderness, from nature itself, they’re the true savages. They’re the ones sending others and traveling thousands of miles from home in order to occupy, mutilate, and kill.” He paused for a breath and looked at T. He wasn’t surprised at what he saw: T was moving so slowly as to be clearly relishing each and every moment between the blinks of his eyes.  
“I appreciate your sentiment,” T said, finishing with his immediate task. “Care less, while doing the right thing. It’s difficult as hell at first, but it’s the only way.”  
Art looked at him, puzzled. How? his look said.   
“Don’t fear. Release your burdens,” T instructed.  
“Sounds nearly impossible. Many of the best rebels are driven by a relentless passion. Doesn’t caring less squash that passion? Isn’t that passion the key to keeping going? A key to motivation?”  
“It can be. It certainly can be. Just think about what I said.”  
“Okay,” Art agreed. He considered T’s demeanor and, admiring it, knew the man must be onto something. “Okay,” he repeated, putting down the shovel.  
T stood up and informed Art that one of the goals of the compound was to increase biodiversity. “Monocultures, like a fucking lawn, pardon my choice of words, are insane.”  
“To them, diversity is not appropriate,” Art whispered. The topic returned Art to earlier musings: the lack of diversity within the Agency’s leadership.  
“What’s that?” T asked. “You look pale, paler than usual I mean.” He laughed.  
“Nothing,” Art said. Smiling, he stepped over the edge of a mulch pile, walked around two raised beds, and began stretching his calves, left hand planted firmly on the cool wall of stone. He felt somewhat dazed, like he had been in the presence of abundant information, but hadn’t focused hard enough, hadn’t exerted himself in order to absorb all of history’s rations. He took his time stretching and breathing deeply. He heard T shuffling around behind him, but he didn’t look back. He trusted T and appreciated the man’s patience. Time passed slowly on this compound and Art was fine with that. Art’s hamstrings stretched quietly and happily, deep breaths infusing them with rich red blood cells. Satisfied with the refreshed feeling, and content not knowing how much time had elapsed, Art pushed back from the wall.  
T had finished spreading out one of the piles. The place where the pile had been on the ground was wet with the gratitude of hearty nutrients.   
“Tell—,” Art began.  
“What lesson did this pile teach us?” T asked, the start of his question overlapping with Art’s truncated statement.  
“Tell me more about your beef with Grough,” Art said in completion.  
T looked at him through squinted eyes. T stuck out his jaw and pushed his tongue over his upper incisors. He told Art. He told him about Grough wanting the land, about the FBI working in coordination with the private mercenary group, and about Grough Group, the larger parent organization, dabbling in all sorts of questionable activities.  
Overwhelmed, Art asked, “So it’s not just about them using the law to kick you off your land?”   
“Our land?” T clapped twice. “Not our land. We try not to stake claims to a plot of land.”  
“Then why hold out? If you’re not attached to the land, why—?”  
“Because we.” T paused.   
Art could see him considering his words carefully, slowly.  
T continued. “I’m not saying that we’re not attached to the land. We definitely are. We love the land, but we also love all land. We’re happy to move on, just not to leave this land to some pricks who’ll pollute it or raze all the trees to make some bullshit training complex or weapons range.”  
“Is that what they’ve got planned?” Art immediately thought about the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. It took decades of local resistance before the U.S. military finally stopped using the island as a bombing range, but not before the ordnance poisoned the land and the water table. Now the people of Vieques suffer the highest cancer rates in the hemisphere.  
“Part of it.” T sighed.   
“What if they use the area for some GMO production?” Art asked, knowing the behemoth parent corporation dabbled in industrial agriculture, as well as real estate, energy, leveraged buyouts, and the war industry.   
“Mmmm,” T grumbled. He motioned for Art to come near. Art did. T motioned for him to come even closer. As soon as Art was in near-T-orbit, T reached out and sucked him into a vice of an embrace.   
“You know,” he said, mouth pressed against Art’s shoulder, “when given the choice, when this is all over I guess, we’re going to scrap all this, reuse it, repurpose it, and then get back to basics.”  
“Wh-AT basics?” Art asked. His question was accented by T’s tightening hug.   
“Foraging, permaculture, and maybe some low-impact hunting and fishing,” T stated, lifting his face from Art’s clothing mid-sentence. He shoved Art back gently. Art staggered, grateful for the embrace. He walked over to the final pile and began working.  
“What about those who advocate switching to a plant-based diet?”   
“Yes. Yes,” T confirmed. “I shouldn’t have said ‘hunting.’ How can someone consider hunting before equilibrium is reached? And that won’t happen in my lifetime, as flora, fauna, and most wilderness have been depleted to an unfathomable extent.”  
Art stuck out his jaw, his under bite conveying inquisition.   
“Let’s see, there’s the decimation of rainforests after rainforests. What’s left? The Amazon is in shambles, a tattered rag compared to its former self. Fish populations have almost collapsed. Pesticides have induced genocide across many insect species. The pollinators are nearly all gone. Soil is depleted. Water aquifers are being sucked dry. It’s brutal.”  
T and Art completed one another’s sentences to come to an encouraging conclusion:  
“I’ll consider it a green revolution.”  
“—From the bottom up, because the super-rich sure aren’t paying attention—”.  
“—Wherein we reassess how we relate to the land around us.”  
Art paused, appreciating T’s efforts already. “Some of us have already begun.”   
T bowed in thanks to Art. He walked over and put a red cassette tape in a stereo along the north wall. A 1992 classic soon filled the underground garden. Reggie Noble’s lyrics graced Art’s ears, particularly one line about a well-laid plan going awry. Art recalled the wisdom of Moltke the Elder: no plan survives contact with the enemy. How would that apply to going back in history to stop the permanent war economy before it got rolling? Change history, like using a different color in my second grade drawing, leading someone to perceive the image differently, leading them to think about an idea they had in their head differently, leading to… Art stopped, frustrated that he had allowed himself a momentary indulgence into the hypothetical absurd. Or was it?  
A kettle appeared in T’s hand. With low sweeps, T irrigated a plant jutting forth from the wall. “Did you know water is the only substance on Earth that occurs naturally in gas, liquid, and solid states?” T’s voice hit Art as if it was emanating from the south wall. Art marveled at the phenomenon. “All water molecules attract to each other, bonding. Bonding like bandits.”  
Art cut in, recalling his high school chemistry teacher. “It’s a weak bond, though.”  
T laughed. “Good thing I didn’t say ‘bonding like rebels’ then.”  
“Look on the bright side. Water exhibits good cohesion,” Art conceded.   
“Yes! Right!” T flew around and skipped back towards Art, parting the fresh air as his foliage of a cloak floated behind him.   
“The problem is… water is an outstanding solvent,” Art noted.  
“So? Couldn’t that be a good trait?”  
“Not if we, if water, is always absorbing and dissolving substances’ bullshit.”  
“Man, you’re really going hard with this allegory, huh?”   
T nodded with a mighty grin.  
“How about this?” Art said, using the bottom of the shovel to tap a protruding peg into the side of one of the raised garden beds. “How about… since water has a high heat capacity, maybe that means we, the rebels, the free thinkers, are able to withstand the going when the going gets tough.”  
“Yes! I like it!” T said with a twirl. “You consider yourself a rebel now?”  
Art didn’t hesitate. “The circumstances dictate as much.”  
T bowed. “Let’s tackle this pile and then head upstairs to join the others.”  
And work they did, a pleasant silence supervising.  
Hand caked with earth’s nourishment, Art looked up at T.  
“You can ask,” T encouraged. “Go ahead. I can see you’ve got a question.”   
“Aren’t you worried?” Art asked.  
“About?”   
“Aren’t you worried about them storming this place? You know the FBI is operating alongside Grough advisors. And I know, I presume you know, that Grough and various special operations units are nearly inseparable these days. So aren’t you worried? They could bring the full might of the D.C.’s corruption down on this place. What would you do?” Art said. “What could you do?”   
T shook his head, part dismay, part mischief. “You know who should be on DEVGRU’s rock of shame?” he asked, referring to Naval Special Warfare Development Group. “All of the war profiteers, the giant corporations who profit from endless war. Those who lobby Congress for more and more war, those who fund think tanks inside the Beltway in order to control the discourse, those who fund congressional campaigns in order to purchase political loyalty.”  
Art laughed lightly, hoisting humor as a shield against the weighty depression of true awareness. A lone gentle exasperation whistled through his nose.   
“D.C. special operations forces and private mercenaries were in over one hundred and eighty countries at last count,” T stated. “And that’s just the information the few remaining hardcore investigative journalists have been able to uncover.”  
“Sheesh,” Art said, aware of the situation, but dismayed nonetheless.  
“Don’t worry,” T assured. “Your transportation north isn’t on their radar.”   
Transportation? Art considered asking for more details, but he felt oddly comfortable trusting that T had taken care of the arrangements.  
“Ask them about Vasili Arkhipov,” T suggested.  
“Who?” Art asked.   
“The man who prevented nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”  
“Oh.” Art felt a little embarrassed that he hadn’t even recognized the name.  
“They’ll give you a good tale about him.” T said, picking up a mini-rake.   
They? Art wondered. “One hundred and eighty countries? What is that, like ninety percent of countries out there?” Art speculated, thoughts bouncing.  
“Yeah, something like that.”   
“You didn’t answer my question,” Art challenged, friendly but firm.  
“Oh, but I did.” Stepping back to admire the second fresh circle on the ground, marking a job well done, T commented, “You can’t step in the same river twice.”  
“Huh?”  
“Some philosopher said that. I should know who, but the name escapes me.”  
“What’s the point?” Art said, delivering the blunt words kindly.   
“I don’t know.” T’s eyes flickered, kindling in the wind. “I guess I felt the saying fit well with what we were discussing.”   
“Their sickness is ours,” Art recalled. Placing an arm around T, Art said, “I apologize.”   
“Don’t. For what? Don’t.”   
“You were trying to tell me something. Something about the significance of the piles of mulch.”   
T smiled. “Ah, yes. Ah, yes.”  
“Will you tell me?”  
“Don’t worry about it.”  
“No, please. Please tell me.”   
“That’s it. That’s what I was going to say: don’t worry about it.”  
“I don’t understand,” Art said. “Yet again.” He smiled.  
“‘Do not worry,’ the piles teach us,” T said. “Seriously. Do not worry. Don’t distract yourself either. Just be. Feel free to create and to love.”   
“But how do we deal with all the propaganda? How do we deal with all the bull? How do we win one? Is that how? Not worrying?”   
“No,” T replied. “No.” He thought for a moment. “How do we counteract it? We become the angiosperm.”   
“Hang on to that stiff cell wall?” Art asked.  
“Hang on to that stiff-ass cell wall,” T said with a hop. “Yeah, something like that. Think of D.C.’s propaganda as endocytosis, active transport of a sort—the movement of propaganda via the media and think-tank membrane into our collective minds.”  
“I don’t like it.”  
“What’s to like?” T replied.  
“No, I mean I don’t like the analogy. The whole plant comparison. Plants, on any level, shouldn’t be dragged into thoughts of propaganda. Plants are the last refuge of the pure.”  
“Outstanding,” T said, hopping twice in place. “Your mind is even farther ahead than I initially evaluated.” He looked at Art, eyes widening the longer Art kept T’s gaze. “Sorry, sometimes I stretch too far. You asked about my past?”  
Art pursed his lips. “No.”   
T stared at him, offering a flare of the nostrils and a rise of the forehead.  
“I did ask about your beef with Grough, though.” He chuckled at the rhyme. The herbal atmosphere allowed it.  
“Maybe telling you about one will clarify the other.”  
“Sounds good,” Art said, sweeping some rocks to the side of the path with the inside of his foot.   
“A company I used to work for, after I left my first job, provided police departments across country with free body cameras.” T paused.  
“That’s… nice,” Art said, aware of his sarcastic word choice.  
“Yeah,” T said slowly. “They even offered a year of free data.”   
Neither of them moved, so T continued.  
“What’s in it for the company, you ask?” T said with a smile. “The vast amount of data collected was quite profitable. They collated and sold some, but mostly just experimented with the data.”  
“No privacy concerns?”   
“Well the contract and the Terms of Service specifically called for the company to redact faces whenever releasing the data to third parties, including governments.”   
“Okay.” Art was also familiar with non-disclosure statements, which allow corporate greed to beat back public scrutiny of any knowledge or computing systems that corporate lawyers might have deemed ‘proprietary.’  
“Yeah. Okay. After raising enough funds—from questionable sources, by the way—and a year or so of experimenting, the company was able to offer upgraded capabilities, including the ability to search a crowd for mug shots of both criminals and suspects—even those with mere outstanding warrants—that are in databases using the real-time facial recognition software and artificial intelligence they’d developed.” T paused, inhaling dramatically, his cloaked chest billowing. “I appreciate your care and efforts today, especially your gentle way. It will take you far.”  
“Thanks,” said Art, honored.  
“Long story short,” T said, not missing a beat, “the company soon marketed predictive software to governments around the world. With varying success they’d scan an area—a lobby or a boarding area, for example—and send out alerts regarding changes in demeanor and emotion among those in the crowd. Anyway, Grough bought that company along the way, and I left shortly thereafter.”  
Still processing all of the information, Art asked, “Do you think we’re there yet? Think they’re able to scan a crowd, as you said, and pick out the bad guys, however determined?”  
“I don’t know. With the kind of computing power they’re onto nowadays… I don’t know. I guess it’s only a matter of time, though, before they’re able to, not predict, but judge how someone will act given enough patters of behavior under study. Does that make sense?”  
“I think so,” Art replied, examining the soil under the fingernails on his left hand. “How far we’ve strayed,” he said suddenly, rapidly.   
“Mmm-hmmm,” T concurred, leaning on a rake.   
“What kind of biases… No… nevermind,” Art said.   
T let it drop.  
Art mulled over the state of affairs: permanent war; citizens everywhere with no idea how or why they’re deemed suspicious by federal entities; legalese protecting the corporate élite; and state violence, now mostly privatized, running amok. Deadly equations.  
“These are small peanuts, though, compared to the environmental disaster we—ahem, they—perpetuate every day. The very system loathes wilderness, destroys the natural world, and masks it all in magical phrases like ‘the economy.’”  
Art perked up, his mind’s waterwheel creaking. “The economy hates the planet?” he posited, unsure the full implications of his words.  
“Remember the old phrase ‘reduce, reuse, recycle?’” T asked, adjusting his cloak of cloudy colors. Art heard beads chattering somewhere within its folds. He thought he caught a glimpse of a buckskin lining, but wasn’t sure. He nodded.  
“Well, nobody reduces. Nobody even tries, even though it’s the most important step of all. We must, all of us, all of us here and out there in the so-called civilized world, reset. Reset it all, aiming for personal sufficiency and public luxury. A luxurious commons.”   
Art forced a smile, which he immediately saw T recognize as fake.  
“You’re still worried about the corporate state. Don’t worry. We know how to think. They only know what to think.”  
Art rotated his shoulder. Delightful heat flooded his arm as T’s wisdom nurtured his mind. He smiled, genuinely this time.  
“Don’t worry, Grough and their ilk will lose, eventually. They’ll be tossed into the lysosomes and recycled into the good stuff.” T continued in the same breath. “Let me show you something that’ll brighten your day even more.”   
T took Art’s hand and led him over to a row of old wooden bins.   
“They go wild for finely ground egg shells,” T explained. He leaned over a wooden bin and pulled back a corner of leaves and shredded newspaper. Red wiggler worms pulsated beneath like an anarchic heart.   
Art looked over and saw Maya’s face admiring their texture. He hadn’t heard her enter the basement.  
“They look like an intricate weave, like some sort of living tapestry,” she remarked, starstruck.  
“A mari usque ad mare,” T said, standing up and closing his eyes. He inhaled, an island unto himself.   
“What’s he doing?” Maya whispered respectfully.  
T briefly rose to his tiptoes and then exhaled loudly as he came back down to earth and opened his eyes. He spoke. “Our compound resists Grough. It’s tough going, but others have gone through far worse. A moment of silence for Natives is the least we can do.”  
“Respect,” Art concurred.  
“I wish we had the breathing room to show you the beginnings of our outdoor permaculture operation,” T regretted. Hints of sadness permeated his voice. He stood up and looked around the basement grow room.   
Young friends descended the stone staircase and began scampering about. Their eagerness and liveliness visibly raised T’s spirits. He looked up to the variety of light bulbs, powered by jerry-rigged solar panels, which had been salvaged from an abandoned business many kilometers east, hanging over rows of raised garden beds. In one sweep across the room, he assessed the carrots, chives, collared greens, radishes, and beets. He was visibly pleased at the budding operation to which the youth of the community had contributed greatly.   
The elderly woman, still draped in scarlet cloth, walked out from behind a raised bed. She smelled her hands, embracing the aroma of earth. Art trailed towards her, enjoying the woman’s slower pace.   
Her shawl seemed puffier, though her face burdened.   
The elderly woman glided up and took T aside.   
Art helped Maya close the lid. He rotated his arm and supinated his forearm, surprised at how well the poultice and herbal teas had helped him heal.  
“How’re you feeling?” Maya asked.   
Art shrugged and smiled mischievously. “You?”   
“Good, good. My head finally stopped ringing.”  
Art laughed, avoiding eye contact.   
“Take ’er easy though,” Maya cautioned. “Don’t go too hard too fast.”  
T approached, wearing a heavy heart on his sleeve. Art immediately sensed the change in his disposition. T hugged Art without saying a word. He smelled like decaying pine. T reached out and grabbed Maya, bringing her into his embrace. She didn’t resist.   
“It’s time to go,” T said into Maya’s collar.   
“Huh?” Art asked, breaking the hold.   
Maya stepped back patiently.   
“We’ve got no place to go.” Art fumbled for words.   
“Don’t worry about it, Art,” Maya said confidently, addressing T. “We’ll handle it.”   
“Actually, I’ve handled it,” T said. “Our request came through.”  
“What do you mean?” Art asked, confused. The grow lights dimmed briefly.   
“You’ll see,” T replied. “Grab your gear.”


	8. Chapter 8

Western Virginia

Drops from the deciduous canopy soothed the car roof.   
“I say we take 81 north and stay west of Philly and Baltimore,” Art suggested.   
Behind the wheel, Donna replied, “Sounds like a plan.” She paused. “Richie?”   
Her husband nodded next to her, tinkering with the seatbelt’s tension.   
Maya opened the rear left door and descended slowly into the backseat. Balking at the stifling humidity inside the car, she immediately rolled down the window, appreciating the hand-crank action.   
T and his friend sat cozily under a nearby river birch. Her back rested gently against the damp bark. Her cherry brown hair scratched softly against the protruding bark as she rocked side to side, very slightly, while T reclined in her lap.   
“I like this,” Art said. “No bullshit, no fanfare, no sappy goodbyes.”   
Maya tapped Art and gestured for him to roll down his foggy window. He gladly complied. Art then waved at T and his friend. They waved back in arching unison. Maya nodded respectfully.   
“Got everything?” Richard asked Maya, Art, and Donna.   
Everyone nodded. Maya looked down at her rucksack. It looked worn.  
Donna pressed the accelerator lightly. Her bouncy black hair swayed like a willow tree. Richard reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. Art gazed out of the window and watched the thick canopy get thicker.   
“T looks peaceful,” Maya whispered as the vehicle pulled away.   
“T’s recon teams say this dirt path leads to the service road, which we can take us to the interstate,” Richard said, looking up from his paper.  
“It’s not on their maps?”  
“It’s not on any maps. We’ll be on this for a bit though.” Richard observed, as his wife masterfully avoid the ruts in the path. A few pebbles plinked off the underside of the vehicle.   
“T says it is part of an old Native American migration path,” Art informed the passengers. “What about drones?” Art asked.   
Nobody answered.   
Maya leaned right and whispered in Art’s ear. “Hacked.”  
Art nodded. Status black. They rounded a bend. An uncomfortable silence crept up; despite all, Maya still had a little Agency blood in her, while Donna and Richard still bled sluzhba vneshney razvedki red, white, and blue.   
A leafy branch flapped against the frame of Art’s window.  
“So what brought you all the way out here in Virginia?” Art asked, chipping away at the stubborn quiet.   
“T contacted us. Told us about the situation,” Richard said.   
“We wanted to help,” Donna added. She reached out with a thick arm and turned a blue knob on the dash, clicking on the radio. A graceful oldies tune crackled gently. The dirt path leveled out somewhat. They rounded a tight bend.   
“It’ll be dusk out there soon,” Art observed, commenting on the dense canopy. Curiosity flowed. “So that’s it? What do you get out of it?”  
“We have our reasons,” Donna said.   
Maya was looking out the window. She tried to count the leaves as they passed. How many could she identify? Not enough. She smirked as the sound of crickets rang off the interior of the car.  
“Just because our capitals might disagree politically, doesn’t mean our espionage agencies can’t align occasionally,” Donna offered.   
“Occasionally,” Art echoed.   
Richard nodded slowly. He rolled his window up and down, causing the airflow to shift inside the car for a moment.  
“I like how well the static-ey music blends with the pitter-patter of the rain,” Art said, keeping the conversation going, even if the direction might change.  
“A man after my own heart,” Donna said loudly.  
“Uh oh!” Richard joked. “Looks like I’ve got some competition.” His hearty laugh shook the passenger seat.   
“We’ve got a six hour drive ahead of us, Richie. Try not to laugh ’em out of the car just yet,” Donna cautioned, placing her right hand on her husband’s left knee.   
Richard chuckled.   
“Six hours, barring any trouble,” Maya said without removing her eyes from the dark haze of passing foliage. “I’ll laugh when the job’s done.”  
Richard yawned abruptly to stifle any appearance of displeasure. He tapped Maya’s shin with his fist without looking back. “I was wondering why you’re so quiet.”  
“The quieter you become, the more you hear,” Maya whispered, a world away.   
“Hmph,” Richard said, still exuding a childlike joy. “Who said that?”   
“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” Art agreed.   
“We appreciate your assistance,” Maya said out of the side of her mouth.   
“It’s no trouble,” Donna answered.   
Art coughed.   
The car sputtered around a bend. Donna slowed down, taking the ensuing incline steadily.   
Pointing at a landmark, Richard said, “According to T’s notes, we should be meeting up with the service road shortly.”  
Art recalled the illegal modifications made on Maya’s vehicle—the engine capable of 410 kilometers per gallon—and asked if this car had similar upgrades. Yes, Donna confirmed, but gave no extra details.   
“Can you try 89.7 FM?” Art asked, leaning forward slightly into the front seat. “Though I doubt we’ll get it out here.”  
“Might I inquire as to why you’re helping us?” Maya asked, fully expecting a clever or manipulating answer.  
Donna started rotating the dial, but then deferred. “Can you do it, honey? I gotta—”. She pointed to the intersection with the service road up ahead.   
“Of course,” her husband chimed in. He shifted his weight onto the center console and coaxed the dial to the left. “Always better to move left.”   
Art laughed lightly at the veiled political reference. The forest thinned out abruptly leaving nothing but misty grassland.  
“I appreciate it,” Richard said, turning around to look at Art. “I was sure that one would’ve fallen flat.”  
Donna slowed their vehicle to a near stop. Richard looked right, as she looked left. She looked right, as Richard looked left. Maya observed their interplay while keeping her own head on a swivel.   
They took a right onto the empty service road, a much smoother ride.   
“I put the dial right around where I think 89.7 is,” Richard said.   
“Thanks,” Art said. “We’ll see if anything pops up.”  
Donna slowly, almost mechanically, moved her right hand away from the steering wheel. She put it on her chin and rotated her head clockwise. Her neck cracked loudly.   
“Why are we helping you?” Donna confronted the question in the air. “Well…”   
Richard looked at her out of the corner of his eye without moving his head.   
“It’s more personal than professional,” Donna began.   
Maya’s lower eyelids rose slightly, almost imperceptibly.   
Richard stated, “Mossad killed someone near and dear to us.”   
Maya waited, wanting to see how much they’d disclose and how much they’d obfuscate. The radio static perked up only to fall quiet once more.   
Their path ran from a field of tall grass into a pasture of wheat, which stretched as far as the eye could see.  
“Where there’s GMO, there’re corporate goons,” Richard portended, nodding to the field.  
His wife ignored him.   
“How do you pass your polygraphs for your employer?” Art asked, leaning forward and tapping Richard on the shoulder.   
“For the most part, I answer truthfully,” Richard responded. “I’ve only had to lie once or twice.”  
“Those things are a joke,” Maya commented mid-yawn, observing the pastureland washed by the cold moon.  
Addressing Maya, Donna asked, “Does the name Lazar Lebdev mean anything to you?  
“No,” Art said. He leaned slightly out the window and looked up.   
Maya remained silent. She hadn’t seen the glint of any drones overhead, though the partial cloud cover made it difficult to tell for sure.  
“He trained us,” Donna revealed.   
Richard sniffed and rubbed the front of his nose on his forearm. “A man named Ze’ev Eshkol killed our mentor, Lazar.”  
Art leaned forward and gave Richard’s shoulder a quick supportive pat.   
“Ze’ev fled the country only a few hours before we discovered Lazar’s body.”  
“He was SVR?” Art asked, referencing Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Art gave Richard’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before withdrawing his arm.  
“Ze’ev? Yes,” Richard replied.   
“He hid the body?”   
“No. He just timed the murder for the beginning of a long weekend. There was a government holiday on that Monday.”  
“Was he working for Mossad the whole time?”   
“We think so,” Donna piped up.  
“We’re sorry,” Art said.   
Maya raised a “who’s ‘we’” eyebrow in Art’s direction.  
Art shrugged, more with his neck than his shoulders.   
“To add insult to injury, he now lives in Ma’ale Efrayim, a colony in the West Bank,” Donna stated.   
“Since when does SVR care about the plight of the Palestinians?” Maya asked. She couldn’t resist the opportunity for a verbal poke.  
“As an institution? It doesn’t. All I’m saying is that Ze’ev took from us, and now he’s taking from Palestine.”  
Partially grimacing, partially puckering, Maya looked over at Art.   
“Let’s roll up the windows,” Donna suggested.   
“Agreed,” Art said. 

Past acres of wheat their road ended at a rusty fence that was held together by a thick old gate. Donna eased the vehicle to a stop. The old brakes barely whined.   
“Wait here,” Richard said. He opened the door, hopped out sprightly, and jogged over to the gate ahead of them. The car door stayed open. The engine cooed.  
“How long have you two been together?” Maya asked, her eyes trained on Richard’s back as he tinkered with the gate’s nickel padlock in the car’s headlights. The car’s dim interior light plucked at her features.  
“Not long enough,” Donna replied. “He’s a great guy. I got lucky.” She smiled, turning around enough to toss the smile at Art and Maya.   
Art glanced at Maya and then down at the carpet. It looked like Donna was assessing a possible romance between Maya and him. Good thing she was keeping her mouth shut.   
Richard stepped back from the fence and turned around. The lock was gone. His hand was in his jacket pocket, securing something with a practiced zip. He hummed around the car door, sat down, and closed the door firmly.   
“This road,” Richard began, getting settled. “We take it west for a bit. Then north on eighty-one.”  
Donna threaded the vehicle through the old gate. After Richard re-secured the fence, they followed the road right and merged into the wider lanes ahead. Richard took off his jacket and placed it across his lap. He reached over and pried his wife’s right hand off the steering wheel. He held it gently. Art eyed the old dashboard from the backseat, noting that they were now traveling about fifty-five miles per hour.  
“How long has SVR known that Chertoff’s ultimate loyalties lie with Mossad?” Maya spoke up, breaking the relative calm.   
Responding obliquely, Donna noted, “U.S. counterintelligence is a joke. Can I just say that? They’re somewhat competent when it comes to Russia. They’re so-so when it comes to China. But when it comes to the Israelis, your counterintelligence has its head in its ass.”  
“No argument here,” Maya replied, winking at Art.   
“It’s deliberate,” Art stated. “Langley careerists argue that the Israelis provide us with intelligence, so we shouldn’t crack down too hard on Israeli activities inside the U.S. It’s a bullshit argument, but that’s what they say.”   
“You know the intelligence—the information—the Israelis give you regarding Middle East countries is always skewed towards Israeli strategic objectives, right?”   
“We know that,” Maya stated. “Others prefer ignorance… So how long have the Russians known Chertoff is working for Mossad?” she asked again.  
“A little over a year,” Richard said quickly.   
Art glanced at Maya. He doubted that she bought Richard’s words. Amazing. The Russian illegals are helping us, and yet we still doubt their sincerity.   
“Think your counterintelligence will ever catch him?” Richard asked.  
“Catch Chertoff?” Art was amazed at the doubt apparent in his own voice. “That would take some serious legwork and some serious planning,” Art speculated.  
Maya nodded. “And some serious political will.”  
The soothing static of 89.7 abruptly stopped. A female voice spoke:

Land disputes are common in the United States, where residents often say their land is taken for infrastructure or other military-industry projects and they are not properly compensated. Our sources say the raids are ongoing.

A lighter voice said: 

We have to adjust a few things on our end. Pardon the lapse in coverage. We’ll return momentarily. 

“What was that all about?” Richard asked.   
“Good question,” Donna said. “Does that happen often?” she asked Art.   
“Not really. Perhaps they had to move a broadcasting location or something,” Art speculated.   
“What about the raids? Do you think T’s place is going to get raided?” Richard asked the group.   
“Maybe they already have,” Maya said.  
Art felt the full weight of her decisions, of their decisions, weighing heavily. He missed T’s compound and the sense that time stood still there.  
“Can I ask you something?” Donna said suddenly, rapidly. She tilted the rearview mirror to link eyes with Maya.  
“Of course,” Maya replied firmly.   
“When did the split happen?” Donna inquired evenly.   
Art caught Maya’s right eyebrow twitching like a hummingbird wing. Other than that, her demeanor was unyielding.   
“Three years ago,” Maya replied with a smooth twang. “You feel Moscow is in the know?” A riposte.  
“We can only speak for ourselves,” Richard interjected, serious.   
“Fair enough,” Maya dropped.   
Richard turned the dial back to soft oldies.   
“Split? What split?” Art asked.  
“A split within the Agency,” Richard replied.   
“Can I ask why this wasn’t made public?” Art asked. “Pardon my ignorance,” he added hastily.  
“Most leaks are tactical,” Donna said, merging north on Interstate Eighty-One.  
“Some are strategic,” Maya added.   
“Regardless of country,” Richard said, patting his right knee along with the classic song that played softly.   
“So this information was…” Art led.   
“This info was highly damaging,” Donna informed. “No one would dare leak it. And only a few know the full extent of the rupture.”   
“I’m still not sure what the hell we’re talking about,” Art groused.   
“‘The divorce,’ it’s sometimes called,” Donna noted.   
Maya remained unyielding. She fended off Donna’s eyes in the mirror. It seemed to Art that she was refusing to concede any sign of surprise at the Russians’ deep knowledge. A battle of the best. And Art was witnessing it. “That doesn’t help,” Art stated, addressing Donna’s stingy answer pointblank.   
“Are you going to share?” Donna asked Maya.   
Maya nibbled her inner cheek.   
Donna waited patiently, letting up a bit on the accelerator in order to stay behind the big rig in front of her.  
Richard led off. “A faction broke off from CIA a little over thirty-five months ago.”   
Donna tisked her husband’s haste.  
“The divorce…” Art said, connecting the dots.   
“Less than amicable,” Donna asserted.   
“What happened?” Art asked. “I mean… why?”   
Donna held her tongue and placed a bridling hand on her husband’s left knee.   
“A difference in opinions,” Maya said casually. She turned to Art. “Bet they didn’t teach you that at The Farm.”   
Art shook his head, flooded with curiosity. “They didn’t teach us much on The Farm, I guess. Too many lectures and too many old timers just talking about themselves.”  
Donna adjusted the rearview mirror to capture the trailing traffic.   
“You got kids?” Maya asked.  
“Two,” Richie said, beaming.   
“Where are they now?” Art wondered aloud.   
“Safe,” Donna said, snapping a glare at Art, telling him to end that line of inquiry.   
Amicably, Richard asked, “You guys? Do either of you have kids?”   
“No.”   
“Nope,” Art said, assessing Donna’s motivations.   
“Do you mind going back to 89.7?” Art asked Richard. “Just in case they come back on air.” Unwilling to restrain his curiosity, Art asked, “So what do you call it?”   
“Call what?” Richard asked, drumming on the dashboard with his index fingers. “It’s getting dark,” he noted quietly. He hummed the beat.   
“Call the faction that split from the Agency?” Art clarified.   
“Who says it’s called anything?” Maya tested. Out her window, the moon’s spill lit distant treetops.   
“C’mon,” Richard laughed. “We’re sure your new organization is damn efficient, but bureaucracy is never far from a Washington institution, no matter how good.”  
Maya grinned. “You want this one?” she asked, nudging her jaw in Donna’s direction.   
Accepting the challenge, Donna answered, “Some of them call it the Array.”  
“Impressive,” Maya admitted.   
Hitting a cymbal splash, Richard noted, “There was a debate early on about the name. Some, like Maya here, don’t refer to it by any name. Others have settled on the Array.”   
“I guess it takes some getting used to,” Art judged.   
“Yeah,” Richard agreed.   
“I still don’t have any idea what the two factions are up to, or how they differ,” Art said, unsure if anyone was going to fill him in.   
Maya spoke, softly at first. “We’re horizontal and creative. They’re one giant lasagna of bureaucracy.”  
Donna nodded.   
“They’re politicized but claim to produce apolitical assessments,” Maya said. “We’re politicized from the beginning, but at least we’re honest about it.”   
“Politicized how?”   
“We have no problem with the idea of an intelligence agency. We just have a problem with one founded to protect the unjust status quo. One designed to protect and promote capitalism at home and abroad.”  
“So you’re politicized how?” Art asked again.  
“They’re politicized by working on behalf of corporate interests and the promotion of neoliberal economic policies, often at the barrel of a gun or by carrying out a coup,” Maya explained. “We’re politicized by working on behalf of equality.”  
“An intelligence organization for the people?” Art asked, astounded.   
“Is that so hard to believe?” Maya retorted.  
“Is it safe to say that you’re a leftist organization?” Donna asked rapidly.  
“I guess you could say that, but the traditional left-right model muddies the waters a bit. We’re an organization for the people. Plain and simple.”   
Donna nodded.   
“Anything to add?” Maya asked, addressing Donna.   
A challenge, Art narrated. He tapped Richard on the shoulder and motioned to the radio.   
“Sorry,” Richard replied. He leaned forward and turned the dial back to 89.7.   
Donna looked out her window at the moon, now snuggled behind cloudy comforters. “Thick clouds here,” she said. “But I bet there’s a beautiful sunset way on the other side of those hills.”  
Maya stretched, Richard sneezed, and Art blinked impatiently. Practiced reserve accompanied them for miles upon miles.   
“I do have something to add,” Donna said finally.   
Art exhaled suddenly.   
“You’re youthful, they’re older,” Donna stated. “You’re scattered and relatively disorganized, while they’ve got a global footprint and are well established in most places.”  
“Well said,” Maya complimented. “Anything else?”   
“Richie?” Donna asked, giving her husband space to speak.   
The radio fizzled, sounding more like an old radiator than static.  
“I dunno. I guess I just like that you’re old school,” Richard said, turning around and looking at Maya. He paused and collected his thoughts before speaking. “You’re more pen and paper. They’re more supercomputers.”   
“We’ve noticed a real drop in the quality of your, er- their, tradecraft in recent years,” Donna added.   
Maya couldn’t argue with that. “Truth.” Tiers of sorrow singed her words.   
“Shit,” Donna said, returning her right hand to the wheel.   
“What?” her husband asked.   
“Cops,” Maya said, already looking behind them. “Two squad cars.”  
“State troopers?”   
“Yup,” Maya affirmed, the P popping inside the cabin.   
“Slow down,” Richard suggested.   
“I’m already going five below the speed limit,” Donna said. “Any lower and they’ll think something’s up.”   
“Quarter kilometer back,” Maya updated. “Do these plates check out?”   
“Yes,” Donna replied firmly. The car was cleared GREEN in all NORTHCOM and Department of Homeland Security databases.   
Amid silence’s supremacy, Maya click her tongue, Art tapped the seat, Richard moved the jacket from his lap to the floor, and Donna kept her eyes glued on the road.   
“Three of them,” Richard said softly, repositioning something beneath his seat.   
Sirens squealed loudly.   
Art caught Donna in the mirror, blue and red flickering in her eyes. Richard looked at his wife. She met his look with stern reassurance, a look that said, ‘Whatever happens, we’ll be fine.’ Donna broke eye contact to return her focus on the road, just as police cars flew by.   
“Yep, state troopers,” Art stated.   
“And military,” Richard stated, observing the USNORTHCOM decal on the third up-armored sedan.   
The car in front of Donna sped up a bit in the wake of the law enforcement personnel. Donna kept an eye on the vehicle while basking in the stress-less silence.   
“Sun’s gone,” Art said, noticing that their car’s headlights looked brighter on the roadway in front of them, happy that nobody in the car was enough of a know-it-all to point out that the sun will only truly be gone in five billion years or so.   
“Indeed,” Donna noted. “Should we stop somewhere to spend the night or plow through?”   
“I say we plow through,” Art suggested.   
“I also think we should continue. Danger aside, we’re also on a bit of a timetable,” Maya said.  
“T mentioned that,” Richard said with a smile. “Alright, so we drive into the night. We’ll take care of the driving. You two rest. I imagine you’ll need your wits about you tomorrow.”  
Maya yawned loudly. Art tenderly touched his temple, which was healing well, before leaning against the car door. 

Art opened his eyes slowly, appreciating the smooth vibrations of the road beneath him.   
“So why’d you leave the Agency in favor of the Array?” he heard Richard ask.   
“Where do I begin?” Maya replied. She sounded friendlier.  
“Let’s see… the Agency has privatized most of their intelligence workload, essentially putting profit over mission priorities, and profit over country.”  
“Like Grough?” Donna asked.   
Art opened his eyes fully. Donna was sitting in front of him now, and Richard was driving.  
“Yeah, Grough is a huge part, but there are many others. Corporations across the board know where the money is. And it’s flowing like wine from the Pentagon and intelligence agencies,” Maya steamed.   
Art nodded to the horizon on his right. No sign of dawn. He checked the dashboard. 4:10AM.   
Following Art’s eyes, Maya said, “That’s wrong. It’s only one-ish.”   
“Roger,” Art noted.   
“That’s it?” Richard inquired.  
Maya closed her eyes. “We’ll be in Canada before I could finish telling you everything that was wrong with the Agency.”   
“How about the abridged version?”   
“The abridged version? The Agency’s intervention in the internal affairs of countless countries around the world is a totally political act. Political violence, if you will.”   
Donna and Richard sat quietly amid Maya’s candor.   
Maya’s opinion washed around the car.   
“I think the U.S. military academy is somewhere around here,” Art said, observing a sign for Harriman State Park in the headlights.   
“North of us, a bit,” Maya said.   
Art smirked. Their drivers had deliberately avoided the thorough surveillance on the Tappan Zee and George Washington bridges.   
“So it’s not just Langley’s support for dictators?” Donna wondered aloud.   
“Which creates environments in which extremism and rebellion flourish,” Richard added.   
“In turn, used as justification for more forms of Agency intervention,” Art said, connecting the dots.   
Maya almost grinned. “Yeah, it’s not just that.”  
“I figured you’d be complaining about Langley micromanaging case officers overseas, or the shitty Farm training, complete with endless old timer rants, not enough real hands-on practice, and nobody washing out.” Art took a breath.   
“I would’ve, but y’already mentioned most of that. It’s definitely a problem, but it’s not the big issue.”  
“The big issue is the Agency’s political violence? It’s terrorism?” Richard asked.  
Art wondered how Maya would handle such a charged word.   
“Yes, but let’s look at why the Agency was established,” Maya said calmly. “Its whole reason for being is to protect and spread capitalism, so those making the decisions—”  
“Like the chief of the Directorate of Operations?” Art butted in.   
“Among others,” Maya replied. “They couldn’t care less about those on the receiving end of Langley’s political violence. Terror, as you put.”  
“You know, Truman once said something like, ‘Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.’”   
“Hell of a man to be making such an assertion, given his deadly track record,” Richard said with a sharp hoot.   
“Maybe he said it out of regret,” Art posited.   
“And caution,” Maya added.   
“Do you share that view, Maya?” Donna asked.   
“Truman’s?”   
“Mmhmm,” Donna hummed.  
Maya paused. “Yes, in a way. The Agency’s mission to protect and promote U.S. capitalist interests is inherently at odds with democracy.”  
“One dollar, one vote,” Richard declared in a singsong way.  
“Capitalists always prioritize their bankbooks over the will of the people,” Donna affirmed.  
“Not only that,” Richard began. “But capitalism itself takes nature and converts it into goods and services. By definition, it eats up the natural world and commodifies everything.”  
“Is that a word?” Donna challenged. “Commodify?”   
Maybe there is a know-it-all in here after all, Art mused.   
Richard chuckled and slapped his belly. “It is today.”   
“But communism’s just as disconnected from nature,” Maya argued. “The only difference is that under communism everyone theoretically gets a fair share of the exploitative goods and services.”   
“Capitalism’s worse though,” Richard argued. “It makes people view other people like objects. Objects to possess, rule, and pump for money.”   
“Yes, but we’ve polluted healthy soil for shortsighted profit,” Art argued. “Communism won’t change that.”   
“At least we can all agree that the true burden on society is the corporate super-rich, not the poor,” Maya said.   
Richard weaved the car along the road through a grove of leafy butternut.   
“Humans do not have the right to degrade the planet, our only planet,” Art concluded.   
Donna mumbled something, which Art couldn’t understand.   
Art continued. “To continue with this type of industrialization, whether capitalist or communist, is to sign our own death warrant as a species.”   
“That sounds a bit like what T was saying when we met with him last,” Donna stated.   
“About corporate control of food?”   
“Yeah,” Donna said.   
“He knows his stuff,” Art affirmed.   
“Do me a favor?” Donna asked.   
“Sure,” Art replied.   
“I was talking to Maya,” Donna clarified gently.   
“What’s up?” Maya asked, slowly and casually.   
“Work to end conflicts on terms favorable to the planet?” Donna asked.  
“Way ahead of you,” Maya said with an eyebrow shimmy.   
“Start packing up,” Richard directed.   
“Huh?” came Art’s reply.   
“We’ll drop you around Katonah, well before the Connecticut border,” Richard said.   
“You two’ve been fantastic,” Art said. “We really appreciate it.”  
“Good company, too,” Maya conceded.  
“You mentioned old school, new school earlier. I like that.” Art said.   
Donna hopped in. “Old school espionage—a little physical, a lotta smarts. New school espionage… Well, any technician with two weeks of Digital Innovation Directorate training can yank data from a server.”   
The radio crackled particularly loudly.   
“Do you mind if I ask how Ze’ev Eshkol killed your mentor, Lazar Lebedev?” Maya asked. She’d probably never get another opportunity.   
Richard swallowed.  
“Zionism has hijacked Jewish communities in many places,” Donna answered faintly. “I’ll just leave it there.”  
“Why doesn’t the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938 apply?” Richard asked, tapping the steering wheel with a metrical knuckle.   
“Cowardice,” Art offered. “And, damn, you know our country.”  
“Agreed,” Maya said.   
Art smiled. But then he wondered which comment she was concurring with.   
“In a way, it’s our country, too,” Donna said. “We’ve been here long enough.”  
“But Congress only responds to corporate greed and lobbyists,” Maya observed.   
Lights from an overpass momentarily coated their vehicle in soft tones.   
“Where’d you guys live first?” Art asked.  
“In the U.S.?”   
“Yeah, here,” Art clarified.  
“Massachusetts, when we decided to settle,” Donna said. The latter half of her answer was infused with a hint of mischief.   
“Whereabouts?”   
“Southeast, near the Rhode Island border,” Richard said.   
“Nice,” Maya said.   
“Yeah, but it was a hell of a commute. Richie drove forty-five minutes a day up and back,” Donna explained.   
“To work?” Art asked.   
“Yeah, he worked at a major weapons manufacturer in Waltham.”   
“Did you even know you were working for The Rite?” Maya suddenly asked Art.   
“The Rite?”   
“It’s what some call what’s left of the Agency,” Maya clarified.   
“Why ‘The Rite?’” Art asked.   
Maya smirked.   
“Why?” Art asked again, rubbing a knot in his thigh, anticipating some hiking might be in their immediate future.  
“It’s a pun of sorts. A tribute to their far right practices and ceremonial stubbornness,” she explained.   
“I see,” Art said, processing a lot. “You really think it’s your country too? Or were you just kidding?”   
“We haven’t received orders from Moscow in over two years,” Donna said.   
Maya cleared her throat. “I don’t believe you.”  
“It’s true,” Richard added. “Two years, two months.”   
Maya held her breath.  
“We still carry out our mission. Don’t get us wrong,” Donna said.   
“We still transmit. We just pick our own targets,” Richard added.  
Maya exhaled. “Bullshit.”   
“Maya,” Art soothed, trying to play peacemaker.   
“No, it’s all good. I just know Moscow handlers,” Maya asserted. “They’re very, very smart, but mostly concerned with pleasing their bosses. Why would they let you go?”  
“Here we are,” Richard said, lifting a single finger from the steering wheel to point at the turnout ahead.  
“So the Rite versus the Array?” Art asked the car, still trying to get his thoughts in order. “The Array, an intelligence organization for the people and planet. The Rite, the Agency’s remnants.”  
“Here we are,” Richard said again. He pulled off the road onto a dusty patch overlooking a large reservoir.   
Maya and Art exited the car, embracing the sudden darkness. The reservoir throbbed shades of inky black. They both closed their doors quietly and walked to the driver’s side window. Art took his time rounding the back of the car and falling in line next to Maya. He wondered how Maya would thank the illegals, or if she even would.   
Maya stopped outside the driver’s seat just as Richard finished rolling down the window. Donna leaned into her husband’s lap.  
“Well…” Richard said, not knowing how to proceed.   
Maya bit her lower lip.   
Donna grinned. “I know.”   
“Do you?” Maya asked, rubbing her right eye.  
“Here’s to a hopeful future,” Donna offered, plopping the bottom of her palm on the top of the steering wheel. Richard slid his leg to the left, accommodating his wife’s elbow.  
“And a brighter future.” Richard’s jovial words escaped the car buoyantly.   
“It’s our pleasure,” Donna said, looking up.  
Richard leaned out the window and offered his hand. “A solitary courtesy,” he joked.  
Art smiled and shook Richard’s hand with two strong pumps. Maya grabbed Art by the elbow, flashed the Russians illegals a beholden nod, and walked across the vacant highway.

“Option A or Option B?” Maya asked.   
Art shuffled through the crisp air to catch up.   
“Option A or B?” she asked again, navigating along the reservoir’s lapping shore.   
“I don’t know. A,” Art replied, a little exasperated.   
“Good choice,” Maya affirmed. “East it is!”   
Art smiled.   
“You look like you could use a rest.”   
“I’m good,” Art swore.   
Maya handed him her canteen, a reused seltzer bottle. “Don’t start whining on me. Have a drink and embrace the good times.”  
“I said I’m good.” Art was grateful it was the dead of night. Otherwise Maya might have seen his face turn red. He paused to take a big sip. She was right. He enjoyed nature and enjoyed a good run, so he should enjoy this. “Think of it as a hike,” he whispered. He jogged to catch up. Four paces in, the bough of a pin cherry tree whacked him across the brow. Art’s sharp laugh cut across the forest.  
“That’s the spirit,” Maya commended. “And stay low, will ya?”   
“Are you going to tell me the game plan?”   
“We head east, like I said,” Maya said.   
“No, no,” Art replied. “I mean, some specifics. Do you even trust me?”   
Maya lengthened her stride.   
Art followed in silence. He guessed it was a little before three in the morning, though he wasn’t too sure. The rest of the silence allowed him to process some of the information he had gained during their car ride north. Breaking the hush, he asked, “So… you work against U.S. imperialism?”  
She laughed—one hard breath, out. “Basically.”  
“Then it wasn’t really a divorce,” Art observed.  
“What do you mean?”  
“If you split or divorced from the Agency, that implies your organization—”  
“The Array,” Maya clarified.  
“That implies the Array and the Agency had similar outlooks to begin with. But if you’re actively working against U.S. imperialism, then…” Art let the blank space talk for itself.  
“You raise a good point.” Maya slid, legs first, underneath a fallen sassafras.   
“It was more of a never-married situation,” Art specified, following Maya, legs front.  
“But many of us in the Array received our training—our initial training, at least—in the Agency.”  
“True.” Maya slid down a cushy slope. Art followed on her tail.  
“Can I ask you something?” Art quickly reconsidered. “Never mind.”  
“No, go ahead,” Maya encouraged, stopping at the bottom of the slope.   
“You won’t answer it,” Art asserted.  
“You never know,” Maya chirped. She looked up through the canopy, eying the fading stars.  
“How? How do you fight against U.S. imperialism?”  
“Ahh, now I see.” Maya rolled her head around her shoulders, massaging her exposed neck with piney hands. “Yeah, I won’t answer that. Not now, anyway.”  
Art stuck out his lower jaw and bobbed his head somewhat grudgingly.   
“Let’s just say, likeminded people and organizations around the world can act in unison against the many soft spots of D.C.’s empire.”  
“Empire…” Art processed.   
“What else would you call an imperial power?”  
“True.” Art conceded. “Vulnerabilities?”   
“Sure.” She gave Art time to think.  
“Can we…?” Art caught himself.  
Maya’s eyes lit up. “What are you saying?” she asked, eager for the results of his implication.  
“Can we… poke at the beast…?”  
“Ah! Yes! Come with me!” She tore off through the brush.   
“You act like you were born in these woods,” Art observed, only able to catch up after Maya paused along a narrow inlet.   
“Negative,” Maya whispered. “Just a lot of preparation.”   
“Do you hear that?” Art asked.   
Maya paused. She smiled at the choir of frogs and the crickets harmonizing back and forth.   
“No,” Maya said. “I don’t hear—”  
“Exactly,” Art said, darting off ahead of her.   
Maya stormed after him. “You don’t even know where we’re going.”   
“Maybe you should tell me,” Art suggested.   
Maya quickly overtook him amid the dense underbrush.   
“We follow the south bank of this reservoir and then we hit the Ward Pound Ride Park,” Maya instructed.   
“So we’re going to hide out there?” Art raised his right arm to block another tree branch. A cool rivulet ran down the rear interior of his shoulder blade. It felt like a lead injection. He smiled at the body’s healing power.  
“No, my friend.” Maya sunk down behind a berm overlooking a two-lane road. “We cross this, then we head southeast. We cross the Old Post Road and then we’re on our way to the park.”  
Art waited, embracing Maya’s patient lead. The peepers barraged them as they waited, and no cars passed in front of them.   
Maya turned to look at Art. He was on all fours to her right. He looked like he was testing the strength of his arms by pushing up slightly against the ground. His posture struck her as a fancy yoga pose.   
“There is where we get our wheels. C’mon!” Maya scrambled over the berm and slid down the needle-covered slope.   
The duo sprinted across the road and into the forest’s embrace once more. They hiked in silence to the Old Post Road. There they stopped again. Art slipped on a rug of pine needles along the far side of the road, but he recovered quickly.   
“Are you operating alone?” Art asked Maya as she helped him to his feet.  
Maya coughed. “Did you hear they’re opening up New York state parks for logging?”   
“They already did,” Art stated.   
“Really?”   
“Wait,” Art paused. “You mean to tell me that I know something you don’t know?”   
Maya smiled and looked through the trees.  
“No, let me enjoy this,” Art joked.  
Maya let him have a small laugh and then said, “Alright, can we?” She gestured with an open palm for Art to proceed.   
Art walked by her with a wide grin. His eyes were adjusting well to the darkness. He made out the distinct lines of smile on Maya’s face as he passed.   
“So when did they open up the parks officially?”   
“An Executive Order came down the other day,” Art said. “But the pulp and paper corporations knew it was coming months in advance, so they started putting their equipment in place a while back.”   
“Reallyyyyy,” Maya said.   
They rounded the bend and descended into a gravely lot.   
“Hablando del rey de roma, por la puerta asoma,” Maya said joyfully, skipping down the hill.   
An eight-wheeled monstrosity squatted on the far side of the lot. It looked like a snowmobile mounted on the front of a flatbed trailer, from the top of which loomed a giant crane. A hydraulic claw hung on the crane like a lifeless asp. Behind the monstrosity parked an empty logging truck. Its front grill grinned—a thirsty undertaker, ready to start stacking corpses.   
Maya skipped across the lot. Art followed. The mechanical beasts subdued the peeper chorale.   
Maya paused near the front left tire of the giant logging truck.   
“Wait here,” Maya ordered. She dropped to one knee, then to her stomach, and rolled under the machine.   
Art stood still. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning the far side of the parking lot—from Pignut hickory in one corner to an SUV in the other—like a nervous squirrel. What the hell was she doing? Was this necessary?   
“Did you see the portrait of Prescott Bush in his study?” Maya’s voice echoed, padded and distant.   
“What?” Art shout-whispered. “Whose study?”   
“Chertoff, dumbass,” Maya said with a laugh.   
“No, I—,” Art began. He cut himself off, recalling the man’s face, especially the no-nonsense character conferred by a meticulous, tight tie, auburn hair parted to the side, and a mummified face—sinister eyes and pestilent lips—that only a bureaucrat could love. A man of will, Art told himself with a nod. “Yeah, I remember the portrait. I didn’t know it was him, though.”   
BAP-SSSSSS!   
“Don’t we have some place to be?” Art asked Maya, responding in haste to the noises coming from underneath the logging truck.  
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do. I do trust you,” Maya asserted. “I just…” she trailed off. “Done!”   
Maya rolled out from underneath the truck, and into Art’s ankle. She grabbed it, steadied herself, and used his belt to climb off the ground. Art righted her by grabbing her by the elbows, but she shook off his assistance.   
“I got it,” she said, dusting off her hands on her trouser legs. A black, greasy smear ran along her brow.  
“What now? Art said, drinking from his water bottle. He offered it to Maya, which she accepted. This surprised Art.   
“Now, we get some wheels,” Maya stated, capping the water bottle and walking into the middle of the parking lot.   
“I… see…” Art replied. His stomach growled loudly.   
“And here’s our ride,” Maya said, gesturing with the bottle to an SUV tucked under a spruce tree in the corner of the lot. 

“It’s gonna be a crisp day,” Art predicted, delaying a question on his mind.   
“Mmmhmmm,” Maya replied.   
“Stiffer suspension, compared to the Russians’ sedan,” Art said as they bumped down the rocky road. The wheel felt cold in his tired hands.   
“It’ll do just fine,” Maya assured.   
“So was that really necessary?” Art blurted out suddenly. He caught himself and restrained his voice. “Like you said, we have a schedule to keep.”   
“What?”   
“What? The sabotage. That’s what.”   
“Are you scolding me?” Maya asked, laughing long and hard.   
“I’m not scolding you. I…”  
Maya laughed some more.   
It’s all a game now? Art wondered.   
“I’m sorry,” Maya said, still laughing.   
“No worries,” Art snapped.  
“Look…” Maya began. She explained a principle circulating among the Array: capitalist infrastructure and supply chains were lengthy and extended, prime for sabotage and disruption. “It’d be a shame if I let such a prime opportunity slip.”   
“Al… right…” Art said, drawing out each syllable as he processed Maya’s rationale.   
“Want me to drive?” Maya offered.   
Art was silent for a moment. She had a point. He suddenly had an overwhelming urge to drive a convertible, or at least have some sort of sunroof through which he might gaze up into the canopy and the beckoning stars above. He rolled down his window all the way.  
“Then what’s your justification for stealing this car?”   
“The logger shouldn’t have left his wheels behind,” Maya said, grazing her fingertips along the ceiling.   
“But he or she is just a worker,” Art protested, though a bit relieved hotwiring the vehicle had taken Maya no time.  
“So?” Maya replied.   
“Well, the worker is probably barely making ends meet.”  
“No,” Maya stated firmly. “‘Just a worker’ is no longer an excuse. Those who side with the capitalists in destroying the natural world are fair game. They’ve made their choice.”   
Art knew he shouldn’t argue, but he opened his mouth anyway. Then he shut it. He realized he had no counter-argument. She was right. Yes, the workers are oppressed. But at the end of the day, workers who knowingly destroy the environment while siding with capitalists are no friends of the people.  
He turned on the radio. 

As Seabees of the U.S. Navy’s Mobile Construction Expeditionary Force, who are deployed with Combined Joint Task Force—East African Community, CJTF-EAC, transfer authority to the incoming unit, they leave behind more than tons of sweat. They leave behind villages of grateful people.  
These Seabees have spent the last six months working in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya to build a medical clinic that serves the Kenyan people. The locals have very few resources, so the U.S. Navy stepped in to help out. The new clinic has state-of-the-art facilities, including three operating tables.  
Construction is almost complete. Unfortunately, many members of the deployed Mobile Construction Expeditionary Force will return stateside before the ribbon cutting ceremony at the end of the month. A fresh unit of Seabees deployed to Kenya last week in order to learn from their departing peers. These sailors inherit the bonds that the previous battalion established with the good people of Kenya.   
The departing officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Commander Roger Morty, honored the locals by organizing a flagpole dedication ceremony. Prior to the ceremony, many Seabees played games with the local children, who love having them around. They danced, kicked the soccer ball, and clapped in circles.   
“By dedicating this pole, we honor your great village. My unit has to go home now, but our work will continue. Have no fear. Our replacements are our brothers, and they will soon be your brothers too.”  
CJTF-EAC supports U.S. Africa Command’s goals of promoting stability while eradicating violent extremist organizations across the continent.   
“It has been a privilege to serve here as an ambassador of sorts,” Lieutenant Commander Morty said. “It’s been a true honor. I am happy. I know if any of the local kids are ever approached by a terror operative, and have to make a decision to do right or wrong, they’ll think about us. They’ll make the right call.” 

Maya coughed.  
“I don’t know why I even bother,” Art said, turning down the Public Radio Nation station. He reclined his seat a bit. “Can I ask you something?” Art asked, turning right on a main stretch of road.  
“Of course,” Maya replied. The right side of her lips slipped sideways, away from Art’s view.   
“I assume you’ve helped craft the curriculum for trainees who want to join the Array?”   
“You can assume that, yes,” Maya said flatly.   
Her tone was cautious and controlled; he was wading into sensitive territory.  
“So, having gone through the Rite’s curriculum at Camp Peary, I’m pretty familiar with the traditional Agency curriculum for case officers.” Art led off.   
“I’d agree with that statement,” Maya said. She brought her rucksack into her lap and draped it over her right thigh. She then turned around to rummage among the car owner’s possessions in the backseat. The ruck slid to the right and came to rest between the meat of her thigh and the metallic door.   
“Well… How does the standard curriculum at Camp Peary compare to what your trainees go through?”   
Maya rummaged faster.   
The Array, Maya’s organization, certainly had its fair share of classroom instruction, but it was more hands-on and interactive than the flood of classroom lectures at Camp Peary. The Array also stressed much more fieldwork, always starting slowly with a new concept and soon picking up pace—crawl, walk, run.   
The distinguishing features of Maya’s organization were discipline and quality over quantity. Every classroom study session had a direct parallel for hands-on training in the field. The flexible curriculum was customized to elevate strengths and eliminate weaknesses. Her favorite class was ‘unwomanly warfare,’ the contents of which would never be leaked. Overall, constant repetition of the basics was essential. Operational security, enemy identification, surreptitious entry, and the principles of recruitment were hammered home again and again. They spent far more time than the Rite covering how to create a thorough legend. ‘Hard to build, easy to destroy,’ she’d say.   
The mundane was never overlooked; many hours were allocated towards crafting speedy, accurate, and precise security reports, as well as reviewing techniques for how to come down from periods of intense aggression and extreme concentration. Weeks and weeks were dedicated to ciphers, counter-surveillance, advanced disguises, and the monitoring of wireless communications. Trainee favorites included boarding and alighting from high-speed trains; ‘creative shooting’ wherein students had to shoot expert from unconventional postures; and how to spot and step-by-step dispel disinformation.   
Improvisation and individuality were emphasized along the way, even during the sections covering prisoner management and how to search a house. The academic units dedicated to crafting incisive propaganda—deep feeling masking, an underlying principle—allowed trainee ingenuity to shine. Intensive foreign language study was a cornerstone of the training curriculum. A minimum score of 4/4/3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale was required for mere entrance into the program. Finally, regardless of previous performance, any trainee who couldn’t pass the silent killing portion of training was recycled back to the beginning of phase one. No exceptions.   
“Interesting question,” Maya stated after several moments of silence, staring into the backseat. She tried to stifle a yawn, but even its dampened sound caused Art to yawn loudly. Maya noticed a little bit of saliva fly out from underneath his tongue and land on the back of his hand, which firmly gripped the steering wheel at three o’clock.  
“Take the principles of compartmentalization,” Maya stated.   
“Oh,” Art interrupted, “they teach us that.”  
“But they don’t teach you the effects,” Maya clarified. She finished rummaging around in the backseat and turned around to admire the interior of the 1991 multi-purpose vehicle made in Wayne, Michigan.   
“What do you mean? They told us all about—”  
“They told you enough so you could play your part. They give trainees no sense of the big picture,” Maya stated.  
“What do you mean?”   
“You know the principles,” Maya noted. “You know the leader divides up tasks so that each player in the covert operation only knows his or her specific role.”  
“Yeah…”  
“So, for example, take Janet,” Maya began. “Janet drives a van one hundred twenty meters southeast on Payanda Sokak. She parks the car and leaves the key on the rear right tire. This is all she knows about the operation.”  
“Yes.”  
“Later that day, a bomb explodes in Marmara University, which the Rite and Millî İstihbarat Teşkilati blame on the enemy-of-the-day. They brief their respective legislatures and heads of state, priming them to pursue policies beneficial only to the Rite’s aims, and, ultimately, capitalist banksters.”  
“And Janet’s participation, because it’s so narrow, prevents disclosure of the covert operation itself?” Art asked.  
“Indeed. At the most basic level, Janet can’t come clean. She doesn’t know enough. Even if she did, she’d only be exposing herself. Those who ordered the operation, the architects, are typically three or four layers of management away.”  
“She’s got nothing,” Art realized aloud.  
“She’s got nothing,” Maya repeated.  
A lighter sky peered through the cloud cover. 

Western Virginia

“Long-range infiltration, place the explosives, then get the hell out! Those were Chertoff’s orders!” the older mercenary with jet-black hair scolded. “Capture-kill only if fired upon.” He led his younger peer—blond hair carved high-and-tight—around a bend in the river. Pitch-black paint covered their exposed skin, patches of dark green throughout.  
“Well, maybe we’ll be fired upon,” said the younger mercenary, Terry, expertly slicing his canoe through the water to pull alongside the older mercenary, Kurt. “Half-hour remaining.”  
“Then a solid ruck,” the Kurt said, concluding the thought.  
“Why don’t they just send another UAV after them?”   
“Something to do with the countermeasures these assholes have. They’re good. Plus, I think Chertoff wants to try a little more… subtlety.”  
They paddled calmly; they had scheduled their operation down to the minute. True to form, Chertoff had left the planning and execution of the operation to the mercenaries. His operation order was a mere one page in length. They had planned the raid to the last details and rehearsed it dozens of times; hunger for the fight now eroded trained patience.   
The target site lay between two splotches of National Forest, twenty miles north of the nearest town. The landscape varied among rocky hilltops, thick canopy, and whiskery fields. Rivers carved in from the northeast forest and forked around the camp. Satellite reconnaissance revealed few obstacles: one main fence with a gate; lookout towers, few and far between; and a thick tree line carefully concealed beneath triple canopy. Reconnoitering by zealous FBI agents confirmed the tree line, but reported it would pose no hindrance. It was just trees. Ground-penetrating radar revealed a large underground bunker, though no imagery analyst could determine where the air intake pipes were located. The two mercenaries carried a light kit: the trusty 1911 .45 ACP, MP5 9mm submachine gun, a sniper rifle of their choosing, satchels of plastic explosive divided evenly between them, and a few concealed combat knives. Their plan met all of the necessary principles: simple, secure, rehearsed, surprising, rapid, and purposeful. It called for them to infiltrate downriver by canoe, ruck hard to the west, and slice northeast in order to approach the site from a sharp angle, though favorable terrain and easy access to the locations where they’d place the explosives. Any unlawful enemy combatants encountered would be isolated, bound, gagged, and, if need be, disabled.   
The clouds sunk lower. The bend in the river trailed into the cockcrow mist behind them. Terry was still using his night vision goggles, but Kurt had already stowed his. Better to let the eyes adjust early.   
Kurt smiled at his younger partner, ready for whatever came their way. He liked the youngster, Terry, the kid had many admirable traits that the older mercenary believed reflected his own strengths. The kid was brash, sure, but he was also strong as a carabineer and sharp as a bayonet.   
As they paddled, Terry tried to convince Kurt that this would be no mere recon assignment. Nor would they hit and run. This would be a slugfest. And Chertoff would be all the happier for it. Kurt was having none of it.  
“Trust me,” Terry said, his blond scalp steaming under a tight watch cap.  
It was still one hour until dawn. They were able to coast easily down river. The current favored them, and they were ahead of schedule.   
Most birds quieted their tweets as the mercenaries arrived onshore. The duo silently scuttled their canoes and waded through the reeds. A lone Northern Cardinal greeted them with a sweet song. The mercenaries trekked about two-hundred meters northeast, away from the banks of the river. The Cardinal’s whistle bid them adieu. They crossed a road—“More of a trail,” grumbled Kurt—and low-crawled under the far-side shrubs into the darkness of the forest.   
After another two hundred meters they climbed a ridge and gained some elevation. A couple of scans with portable fifth-generation forward-looking infrared indicated the enemy’s compound was located five hundred yards northeast. The younger mercenary began setting up a tripod.   
“What’re you doing?” Kurt asked, stretching his legs.   
“Just getting a better survey of the scene,” Terry replied.  
A knot in a gnarled oak gave him the stink eye.  
“With a sniper rifle?” Kurt questioned.   
Terry didn’t answer. He un-shouldered his modified Scharfschützengewehr 69 and set up a hide among patient scrubs. He often caught a good ribbing from his peers for carrying such an obscure rifle, but it was his favorite, and a reliable favorite at that.  
In decent concealment, Kurt sat back, finished his first canteen, and started in on his second. Satisfied, he stood up and set out for a location with better cover. He knew from the lone crack of rifle fire that his younger associate had broken several rules of engagement. He also knew that Terry didn’t care. The young man would have some excuse, an excuse he’d picked up overseas, perhaps. ‘The enemy threatened my position’, ‘It’s good to bloody my sword’, or ‘Higher headquarters shouldn’t dictate rules of engagement on the ground’. The options were innumerable. The precedents had been set over decades of endless war. Meanwhile, the 7.62x51mm NATO round had found its target.  
Kurt crawled over to his partner’s hide. Through thick binoculars he saw the deceased. Blood matted her cherry hair, turning it a sooty hue.  
“What was she even doing outside? Where were her friends? Family?” Kurt was momentarily appalled by the empathy present in his own words.  
“Sometimes women sneak out,” Terry muttered, remorseless.  
They surveyed the scene, making sure no rescue party was sent. Terry stowed his tripod after twenty-five minutes. Confident all was quiet, and with Kurt still looking through his meaty binoculars, the mercenaries set off once more.  
“Watch out,” Terry whisper-shouted. “There could be mines all over this place.”   
“Were you sleeping during the pre-op briefing? These characters don’t use mines. They’re too concerned about harming the trees or some shit.”   
“Still,” Terry said. “I’m gonna tread lightly.”  
The duo shot an azimuth and settled into the final portion of their trek.  
Smokey first light held up the lush canopy. Thicker and thicker came the brush. The pair was soon sweating heavily.   
“Those game trails?”   
“No…” came the cautious reply. Kurt signaled for his peer to halt.  
Wanting to conserve what little water he had brought with him, the older mercenary took a knee and withdrew a thick tube-like straw from a side pouch on his black rucksack. He bent over, covered the bottom end with a handkerchief to block some of the heavier sediment, and took a long slurp from the pool of water in a deep footprint. He motioned to Terry, who shook his head to decline the drink.  
They set off again. The obstacles got thick, thicker, thickest as they approached one hundred meters of what intel said was the rebel’s primary building.   
Brambles, bamboo, rattan—incongruous to the trained natural eye—and rows and rows of a thorny vine sharper than concertina stared them down, like a defensive line no fullback could penetrate. Stiff and stern as royal sentries, fiddleheads stood along the far side of the bramble wall. The mercenaries tried to navigate around the rows, but only found themselves being forced farther and farther from the building. After much arguing, they decided to double back and hack their way through at the original junction.   
Forty minutes later, the mercenaries emerged from the defensive line. They had lost some gear—the clerk back at Grough HQ was going to throw a fit—but “Hey, we’ve still got our health,” Kurt jested, bandaging his tattered forearm without breaking stride. He stomped on a patch of fiddleheads and led the way forward amid the breakfast sun. Terry soon passed him, jesting, “Shoulda taken that gig with TrechMatter Global,” referring to one of Grough Defense’s industry competitors.   
The ground became spongy. Going slowed to an agonizing pace. Each footstep cost great energy. The suck and the sploosh of a lone step were loud enough to wake the Continental Congress. They tried to retreat, to no avail. Every direction offered nothing but grueling muck.  
“We could call in an airstrike.”  
“You’ve already killed enough today,” Kurt replied, resorting to humanity in the misery of the slog.  
Slog. It didn’t show up on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s finest maps.   
The two men didn’t want to admit it; they were years removed from the SEAL teams, and their days at Grough had weakened them. They could ride a chopper, breach a door, and raid a room, sure. They could snipe from great distances and drive aggressively in convoys. They could even put on a good show at Alpha Leonis Avenue, but when push came to shove, their long-distance stamina or lack thereof left a lot to be desired. Money had muted their mettle.   
Up ahead, hope sprung. “I see it! A patch of dry leaves!”   
Terry ditched his tangled ruck and began to low-crawl, spreading his weight out across a larger surface area.   
Kurt observed. He scratched his face. His meaty hand barely registered through the mud caking his jaw. After a moment of musing, he decided to follow the brash youngster’s lead. As he neared the bed of dry leaves, he spoke into the comms gear strapped to his right shoulder.   
“Two tree Romeo, this is Thorn Fury. Do you read?  
“Two tree R—”

The appendages of Chertoff’s two mercenaries—bloody socks, torn camouflage trousers, and broken arms—poked through the industrial netting like cactus thorns.   
“I bet they didn’t teach you that in SEAL qualification training,” T said, coughing up blood; Kurt had shot well before being disarmed. T spit a thick wad of phlegm against a nearby birch tree. The bloody red stuck hard against the tree’s brilliant bark.   
“Think Chertoff’ll kill us for going so slow?” Terry joked.  
No reply came his way, so he turned towards his partner. Unconscious, Kurt hung droopy, like a squid on sale at a bazaar.   
Unsure of the next move, Terry answered his own question. “Nah, he’s not one of those micro-manager types.” He chuckled nervously. The netting shook.  
T circled beneath the netting like a shark. Terry tried to shift in order to keep an eye on T, all the while reaching slowly behind his back. In a fit he brandished the sizeable blade and quickly hacked his way through the side of the netting. T watched. Terry was soon hanging from the edge. He looked up at his unconscious partner still tangled intricately in the heavy meshwork. He made up his mind. He let go.  
Terry landed harshly, the bed of dry leaves doing its best to give him no quarter. He winced but managed to stand up straight despite the pain.   
He wielded the knife adeptly.   
T’s pack emerged from the surrounding wood. They, too, displayed a bit of weaponry. Knives, mostly, though the mercenary noticed some sturdy classics, like the M1911, among the exposed arsenal. He laid his knife on the forest floor, hoping for a humane surrender.   
“Corporate pay rates have made you soft,” T mocked, knowing he, too, had a slim chance of seeing the day’s sunset. He reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a tidy, dark green bag, remarkably free of bloodstains. In the blink of an eye the bag’s contents became ammunition; fire ants showered the mercenary. Terry remained surprisingly still, showing impressive mind-over-matter fortitude.  
“Want a draft of our Constitution? We were working on it this morning, until you killed one of our friends. One of our dear friends.”  
“Fuck you.”  
“Follow your shot,” T grumbled, his words, his instructions, mere leaves in the wind.  
The clouds above unleashed rain, a brief downpour but good enough for a soak. The funeral pyres blazed hard for two straight days.

Connecticut, USA

A circular WELCOME TO BRANFORD sign lolled past the car as Art rolled their SUV into town.   
“What’re you up to?” Art asked, glancing over repeatedly at Maya.  
“What do you know about the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet?” Maya asked, head down, typing away at a clunky device in her hands.   
Art clacked his teeth. “Um, headquarters in Japan… They’re responsible for most of the Pacific… and I think it’s the largest of all the U.S. fleets.”   
“And how many Seventh Fleet sailors were bribed last year alone?” Maya challenged.   
“Shoot, I dunno. Ten? A dozen?”   
“Slightly over one hundred, and that’s just according to official figures from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS,” she instructed. “The real numbers are much higher.”   
“You didn’t answer my question,” Art asserted.   
“But I did. But. I. Did.” She repeated the last three words coinciding with three keys typed on the device in her lap.  
“I’m lost,” Art replied. “Then again, I feel like I’ve been pretty lost since meeting you.”   
“Not all who are lost wander,” Maya said with a smile, clipping a sausage-looking wire to the top of the device. “Bribery is a weakness. We can exploit weaknesses.”   
Art slowed down to abide by the seaside town’s speed limit.   
“So… what are you doing?” Art tried again.  
“DOD’s Mobility Classified Capability program is a joke,” Maya muttered. “Grough has made many enemies. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In this case, an Admiral named Worrell.”  
“Worrell?”  
“Until very recently, he was allied with Grough, bribing Seventh Fleet sailors.”  
“Why?”  
“I can’t speak to the man’s personal aims, but it was definitely one hell of a lucrative operation.”  
Art looked out his window, easing up on the gas pedal as the sign for an elementary school came into view. The town green beamed brightly on his left. An episcopal church with a tall white spire happily soaked up the morning sun. Litter and discarded resources blew across the grass. To his right, a dusty sign hung outside a ratty ice cream parlor, boasting about free sprinkles.  
Maya rested her eyelids. Between letting her eyelids go, she blinked through a coffee shop with a narrow cedar deck, an antique store with a grimy window display, and a restaurant with red awning advertising seasonal favorites.  
“You asked me earlier about the wildest pieces of intel I ever came across,” Maya said, shaking slumber from her head.   
“Yeah?”  
“Well… Do you know why New Zealand has one of the highest rates of whale stranding in the world?”   
“No…”   
“U.S. Navy subs have been testing a new sonar in the Tasman Basin and the Bounty Trough,” Maya explained, snapping and unsnapping a small black square from the device.  
“It drives them mad? The whales, I mean. The sonar drives them mad?” Art deduced.   
Maya nodded, mouth scrunched. She scanned the town as they drove. A blue tarp covered the side of a house, large leaves of chipped paint flexed tall underneath. Thick deciduous trees lined the road here and there. A glassy bay peeked through between cozy homes. Wooden boats rocked comfortably.   
“What about you?” Maya asked after a moment.  
“What about me?” Art replied. He stopped at a stop light outside the town hall, set back from the road a ways.  
“The wildest intel. What’s the wildest piece of intel you’ve ever seen?”   
Art swooped his jaw forward. “I guess it’s only hearsay,” Art said after a moment. He accelerated slowly after the light turned green.  
“How so?”   
“Well, I only heard about it indirectly.”  
“Did you see any documentation or data?”   
“Not exactly. Basically…” Art started to mumble.   
“Speak up, please,” Maya encouraged.   
“So… a joint team from Edgewood Arsenal and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has manufactured a microbe on a massive scale that can rapidly eat up any type of plastic, turning the waste into harmless byproducts—water, nitrogen, carbon, and something else, I think.”  
“That’s incredible,” Maya gasped.  
Art appreciated her rare show of emotion. He let up briefly on the gas pedal, only to accelerate slightly as he cleared a pothole.   
“How’d you come across this hearsay?”   
“Idle talk in the Agency’s SCIF twelve stories beneath Pereira’s skyscraper in San Francisco. Problem is,” Art continued, “DOD deemed it proprietary knowledge and won’t release it to anyone, let alone the rest of the world.”  
Maya sighed. “They’re just sitting on it?”  
“Yup.” Art rolled over a speed bump as the necessity of Maya’s life decisions hit home.  
“Pull in here,” Maya ordered, gesturing to a marina sign with her right elbow, keeping her hands wrapped around the device, which she now hugged into her chest.  
“The Saxolt Marina?” Art asked.   
“Yeah,” Maya said. “Lots of cars come and go. Too many faces to remember. We should be good here.”

Before tucking in for a rest, Maya demanded a full accounting of their injuries. She walked to the nearest pharmacy while Art stayed in the SUV. The pharmacy was lightly stocked, but served their purposes just fine. Maya returned to the SUV, patched up Art thoroughly and then took care of herself. Art was soon snoring next to her on the metal bed in the back of the SUV. 

Art woke up. “You awake?” he asked. He had been dreaming about the Chinese Ministry of State Security.  
Her yawn answered ‘yes.’  
He rolled his head to the left. Maya was staring straight at him, her chin propped up on her elbow. The sky outside told him it was nighttime, or before morning nautical twilight. He couldn’t tell while lying on his back. Had he slept through the day? No. It was just before dawn.  
“Creep,” Art said, stretching his bad arm across his chest.  
She laughed.   
“Can I ask you something?”   
“You don’t have to ask.”  
“If I said to you that the surveillance state gets rid of any truly effective progressive leaders, what would you say?”  
“I’d say history agrees with you,” Maya affirmed. “History is a weapon, you know?”  
“Mmmm,” Art replied, rumpling his mouth and cheeks.  
“You’ve been through a lot,” Maya noted. “Don’t try to understand it all so fast. It’ll overwhelm even the broadest minds.”  
“Capital is the Agency. The Agency is capital,” Art whispered, running earlier thoughts by Maya.  
“In a way, yes.”  
“There will never be any progressive change in this country, because the system exists to protect and promote capitalism, which is inherently oppressive and destructive.”  
“True,” Maya concurred.   
“What woke you up?” Art asked.   
“You were rustling in your sleep. Like a puppy chasing after a squirrel in dreamland.”  
Art laughed loudly.   
“Shhh.”  
“I mean, what made you break from the Agency? What woke you up to its horrors?”  
“History,” Maya stated firmly.  
“History?”  
“If you have half a conscience and you know history, there’s no way you can work for the Agency.”  
Art sat up as Maya’s words sank in. He was now eye to eye with Maya.  
“Agency work overseas isn’t glamorous, unlike Hollywood portrayals. It’s a lot of desk work, a lot of meetings, and a lot of downtime.”  
“Okay.”  
“I had graduated top of my class at the Farm. Agency suits saw me as a rising star. I got some choice assignments early on.”  
“Choice in the Agency’s view,” Art amended.   
“Exactly. Well we had a lot of downtime, so I began to read. I read and read and read. I was in a major metropolitan area, and the local libraries had a great selection. The cherry-picked history they gave us in U.S. schools and during training had omitted the overall pattern: CIA works on behalf of capitalist interests, first and foremost. This, by definition, entails snuffing out any progressive movements around the world.”  
“What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?”  
“Good question.” She sat up farther. “I guess reading about Operation Condor. That really tied everything together.   
“Operation Condor?”   
“The Agency’s work in South America to demolish any resistance to U.S.-backed dictators in the region,” Maya elucidated, now sitting cross-legged.   
“Allende?”   
“Getting rid of him was the beginning,” Maya explained.   
“Hmmm.” He had heard about several of the different procedures under the Condor umbrella, but he was unfamiliar with the Operation’s formal title.   
“Don’t you dare nationalize the resources under your own soil,” she joked.  
“Che?”  
“Guevara? He was earlier. They killed him in sixty-seven.”  
“Two years after Malcolm died,” Art noted. “Malcolm…” Art connected the dots.  
“They will target any effective leader who promises genuine, disruptive change to the system.”  
“Malcolm…” Art repeated, mouth open.   
“Focus,” Maya insisted. “Before Malcolm, they were targeting progressives in Guatemala.”  
“Nineteen fifty four?” Art asked, more familiar with that part of Central American history.  
“Yeah, they got rid of Jacobo Árbenz, but it was bigger than that. They got rid of progressives, indigenous peoples demanding a fair share, and politically active campesinos.”  
“Shit.”  
“I’ve never heard you swear before,” Maya noted.   
“Well… I guess now is as good a time as ever.”  
She continued. “I’m sure my sequencing is off a bit, but… well… Actually, why don’t you try? What history do you know? You probably know more than you think.”  
Art adjusted his position in order to lean against the tire well, saying, “I know the Agency supported Duvalier in Haiti.”  
“Good. What about Brazil?”  
“I know there was a military dictatorship in the sixties.”  
“Not just the sixties. It stretched into the eighties,” Maya explained. “It all started with getting rid of Brazilian President Goulart.”  
“Tell me more.”  
And so she did. She talked about the Dirty War in Argentina, Dan Mitrione wreaking havoc in Uruguay, and the Agency’s support for death squads in El Salvador. “Rest in peace Archbishop Romero,” Maya concluded.  
“They killed an archbishop?”  
“One way or another, they kill anyone who believes in self-determination,” Maya resolved.   
Recent Agency activities tread hard in his mind. Once disparate pieces fell together: supporting Noriega in Panamá and Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia; coups against Chavez in Venezuela and Zelaya in Honduras.   
Looking at Art’s brow, Maya stated, “Did you know they were behind the shift of Mexico’s PRI to neoliberal economic policy in the eighties?”  
Art shook his head.   
“Did you know about the Agency’s use of SIN in Peru?”  
“It’s all one big sin,” Art commented.   
Maya chuckled. “No, I mean SIN—el Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional in Peru, the Peruvian intelligence service.”  
Art laughed too. “Ahhh.” He folded up his blanket. “And that’s just this hemisphere!”   
“They really give you a selected education at Camp Peary, eh?”   
“I’m sure they’d call it a ‘curated’ education,” Art joked.   
Maya began gathering her belongings. “Here.” She handed Art a large plastic bottle that once held spicy tomato juice.   
“Thanks.” Art opened the top and chugged the fresh water. Wiping his mouth, he asked, “You think people like Macri in Argentina—”  
“Sorry to interrupt, but I’ll just clarify something for you. All conservative Latin American leaders are supported by the Agency, now the Rite. All.”  
“So where does Chertoff fit in?”  
“Chertoff is a player, not too different from, say, Bissell in the late nineteen fifties. Chertoff’s overall efforts with the Agency, with the Rite now, help promote U.S. capital interests around the world. He provides Mossad with information when he can—sort of a side gig. Right now he’s focused on us, on the Array.”  
“Why? Because the Array offers the people hope? Because the Array is trying to fight for equality and decency?”  
“Exactly. The Array is a radical espionage agency, as bizarre as that sounds. Chertoff and the old boy devotees can’t have that.”  
“How else does Chertoff differ?”  
“From other players in the game? Not too much. His work for Mossad is traitorous, sure. And narrow, definitely. But, in the big picture, he’s still all about capitalism.”  
The war was bigger than Chertoff, bigger than our current battle.  
“You hungry?”   
Art nodded.  
In silence, he watched her tidy up their vehicle. He wondered what else she was thinking. He then thought about waking up snuggly at T’s. Art looked east, observing the light return to the water.   
Maya was looking around the parking lot.   
Art followed her gaze. He pictured the automobiles eroding over time, leaving behind peaceful, rolling hills. The closest star churned the horizon, rippling tangerines and crawling pinks.


	9. Chapter 9

Connecticut, USA

The gentle waves rolled cozily against the rocks below his soles. Maya and Art sat on the edge of the marina’s property, just off the exit road, separated from the street by a thick hedge of brambles and pines. Art finished his simple breakfast of hard bread.  
“You tired?” Maya asked.   
The bay sighed beneath a crinkly blanket of plastic clutter. Bottle caps, chunks of car fenders, polystyrene coolers, flip-flops, lighters, nylon ties, plastic bottles, toothbrushes, squeeze-tubes, and other petroleum-based synthetics all clattered together. With some effort Maya tuned out the toxic symphony, preferring to see past human’s pollution in order to enjoy the sea’s power.  
“Not really. Napping helped,” Art replied. He yawned. “… these past few day…” he said, a chunk of a sentence with no beginning or end.  
“Yeah,” Maya sympathized.   
Art rotated his shoulder and patted it with a cupped hand. “Thanks, by the way.”  
“Don’t mention it,” Maya said.  
Art laughed, loudly.   
Maya tilted her head ever so slightly. Do tell, her gesture said.   
“I can’t help but laugh at the insanity,” Art explained.   
“That helps.”   
“It sure does,” Art said with a nod. “It helps me do my best.”   
“Every day,” Maya added.   
“Because happiness…” Art trailed off.  
Maya let him think. He could say something along the lines of ‘happiness is found along the way’ or ‘happiness is enjoying the journey.’  
“It’s nothing,” Art said.   
Maya let it be. She inhaled the sea breeze deeply. The air pollution was lighter today, she could tell. “You a man of history?” she asked.   
He tossed an elevated eyebrow in her direction. She caught it out of the corner of her eye; she didn’t need to lift her head to understand his reply, a playful probe about the meaning behind her question. She kept her eyes on a tide pool among the rocks below. The waves lapped around it, but the tide pool remained untouched. Only the occasional sea spray bristled its surface.   
“I took some time recently, in the middle of writing the code that helped me find you, to read about… Well… what do you know about the Pequot?”  
“The Native tribe? Not much, I admit.”   
“T’just occurred to me, this is their land,” Maya explained.   
“On the geologic timeline, they were here yesterday,” Art noted.  
“A few still are,” Maya said.   
“Mmmm,” Art replied. “What did you read about?”  
“I just couldn’t help but think… when the colonists wiped ’em out, or tried to, that we need to keep the lessons in mind, especially these days.”   
“Go on,” Art encouraged.   
Maya swung her legs over the rock ledge. She let them dangle and sway.   
“The colonists broke their word, all the time, every time,” Maya instructed.  
Art nodded.  
“Morals, scruples… meant nothing to the colonists. And Native weaponry was no match for what the colonists had brought,” Maya said.  
“They still fought hard,” Art interjected. “The Natives, I mean.”  
“Yeah, their spirit and skills were… incredible,” Maya said slowly.   
“Mmmm,” Art said again.  
“Lo que está hecho, hecho está,” Maya whispered, nothing but mumbles under the sea’s rumble. “The important point is that nothing has changed.”  
“I don’t understand,” Art said.   
“Look at each part of the military-industrial-congressional complex—the Pentagon, the war corporations, and the corrupt Congress. Morals mean nothing to them. And their firepower dwarfs anything the victims might muster.”  
Art inhaled slowly.  
“Those who run the show…”   
“Men like Chertoff?” Art asked. “I’m not sure anyone is actually running the show.”  
“Chertoff, sure,” Maya answered. “But also those who profit off of endless war. The CEOs of the major war corporations.”   
“No scruples,” Art concluded. “They’ll break their word all the time?”   
“No scruples,” Maya agreed. “But they’re quite true to their word. They seek profit, and profit they get.”  
Maya noticed that Art was breathing rapidly.   
“… four, five, six, …” Maya counted.   
“What?” Art exhaled.  
“The periwinkles down there.” She wiggled her feet side to side like a young child. “They take notice, you know.”  
“Huh?”   
“The CEOs. They notice. They’re not fools.”   
“Yeah,” Art said.   
“They just don’t learn the lessons,” Maya said, resolved.   
“They will,” Art replied.   
Maya was surprised at the ferocity in his voice. She leaned back and tried to kick Art, teasingly, but her leg sailed wide. “What do you know about the SSNP?” she asked.  
"The ballistic missile submarine?" Art wondered aloud.  
Maya laughed. She couldn't help it. She laughed hard. "No," she said finally. SSGN was a U.S. Navy submarine classification. SSNP was a political party in the Arab world. Having spent most of his relatively brief career in the Directorate of Operations’ East Asia Division, Art did not have the deepest understanding of the history of Arab political parties.  
“Divide and conquer. That’s what they specialize in.”   
“Who?” Maya asked.  
“The MIC’s finest capitalists,” Art clarified. “They know a united people, a people united across ethnicities and classes, spells big trouble for them.”  
“The spirit is sick,” Maya offered. “Our spirit, human’s, I mean.”  
“Yes,” Art concurred.   
The bay sprayed a tranquil mist through the constant clatter of plastic floating atop its surface.  
“Maybe not your individual spirit, or even mine, though we’ve got our own issues. I mean the greater human spirit. If even one part of it—those vicious capitalists, as we were saying—is sick, then the whole thing is ill.”  
“Their illness, they impose it upon us, upon the people? In order to keep us under control.”  
“Very good,” Maya lauded. “So they pepper us with myths, too. Directly and indirectly telling us that war is good. Good for us, good for us all.”  
“When no war, no war, has been for the people or the common man,” Art decided. “But we don’t recognize their moves. Even though they’ve used the same moves again and again.”  
“Ahhh,” Maya sighed, tongue out. “They’ll drown us in advertising, propaganda by another name. Tellin’ us, adventure awaits if only you’ll enlist.”  
“While bribing with signing bonuses and lucrative payments towards education,” Art connected. “No matter if the war doesn’t benefit those who sign up.”  
“No war has ever benefit the people. It’s all about profit, from removing the natives—”  
“Ethnic cleansing,” Art interjected.  
“Ethnic cleansing, yeah,” Maya acceded, welcoming the correction. “From ethnic cleansing clearing the way for colonial commerce, all the way through to today where the wars never end.”  
“War for war’s sake.”  
“War for profit’s sake. All while yelling ‘freedom!’ and ‘democracy!’ and ‘liberty!’ And talking the talk of the average Jane, pretending not to favor the rich, in order to keep order.”  
“Though the laws they put in place are directed against the working people,” Art said, leaning back against a smooth rock.  
“Bringing us full circle,” Maya resolved. To no one in particular, she declared, “Claim no glory for yourself. Work for the glory of the planet.”   
Art sat up, straightening his spine, and tucking his feet underneath him.  
A seagull landed on one of the boulders below. Maya admired the glacial erratic. Its greys and blues sloughed together as she moved her head side to side, enjoying the reverie.   
The depths of the ocean in front of her, and brief reflection on the temporal power of glaciers, raised her spirits. She smiled; in due time, all of humans’ destruction would be subsumed into the earth. Microbes, given enough time, would even eat up humans’ plastic pollution. It’s just a shame that so much good life, so many species, have been infected or choked and died from our pollution.  
Maya looked back over her shoulder through a row of dense pines. She eyed their vehicle and then turned to look at the ocean’s deep.  
“How far out until the continental slope?” Art asked.  
“The way we’re facin’? Miles and miles. Almost two-hundred, if I had t’guess, past Block Island Sound,” Maya said. 

Art looked at her. She was staring directly south. The gentle sun was glinting off her left cheek. For the first time in the hours that Art had known her, she seemed vulnerable. He wondered where her mind was drifting.  
“Ya know, some vets from the Directorate of Operations might say the Agency’s greatest Latin America success was getting Che in Bolivia…”  
“But…?”  
“But the Agency’s true historians would say Peru in the mid-sixties.”   
Art got the feeling Maya was unloading information and conscience. Why, though? He assumed she didn’t get the chance to do this often.  
“Was Tania, the female East German in Che’s company, really KGB?” Art asked, hoping to surprise Maya with his knowledge of Western hemisphere operations.   
“Bunke? That’s one rumor. No matter whose allegiance she held, she was a hellava hard worker.”  
“Did you spend much time in the Latin America division?” Art inquired.   
Maya shook her head.   
It occurred to Art that he didn’t know how old Maya was. He tried looking at her quickly and discretely, but he couldn’t nail down her age. She could have been twenty-five or forty-five. He smiled.  
“Do you ever question why we fight?” Art asked, a gust of wind swallowing most of his words.  
Maya shook her head very slowly. Then, she licked her lips, sloppily, like a Labrador retriever eating green beans. “No,” she mouthed. Or maybe she had spoken; Art couldn’t tell whether or not the wind and surf had succeeded in swallowing her word. “Doing nothing.” She cleared her throat. “Doing nothing, the filthiest crime.”   
Art sat up straighter.   
The greasy black smear on Maya’s forehead was duller but still noticeable. She continued. “Places around the world have a lot of wealth. Mineral wealth. ‘Natural resources,’ some might say. Stuff like that. These are the places where corporate greed seizes riches. The places, now victims, …”  
A group of friends walked by, along the gravel and pine needles that coated the side of the road, likely headed into town for supplies or a warm breakfast. Maya and Art remained unseen on the other side of the thicket.  
“I squeemed big time,” a young voice said.  
“Yeah?” came a higher pitch.  
“Yeah, but I only watched for an hour or so.”  
“I think you mean another word.”  
“What do you mean?”   
“I mean I don’t think that’s the right word.”  
“Ha! I was like this,” the young voice said, pausing to make a face.  
“So you mean, you were cringing?”   
“I don’t think that’s the right word either,” a third friend interjected.  
“More like…”  
“I dunno. I like squeemed.”   
“It’s more appropriate to say…”  
The group of friends passed out of earshot.   
Maya picked up where she had left off. “Only a full-on rebellion will end the system. It should have happened decades ago. Maybe centuries,” she said with a tender forcefulness.   
A fleeting feeling of nausea passed through Art. He scooted closer to Maya.   
“But so far, all agitation has been channeled into the system, into the miserable ballot box—”  
“A black hole to all your energies,” Art added, feeling a little better. He rolled with the wave. “Sure, pick between two corrupt assholes, get fed wars against bogeymen overseas—”  
“Because those guiding the endless war can then organize it.”  
“If rebellion got off the ground—gets off the ground—those who organize and promote war would be some of the first to go, and they know it.”  
Art and Maya fell into a smooth rhythm, volleying measure like bass and drums.  
“War, ultimately, secures the élites,” Maya posited.  
“Funnels popular anger into—”  
“Blinding the people who live between these arbitrary borders,” Maya added.  
“A fake community, bound together by B.S.,” Art finished.  
“Those running the show’ll make concessions once in a while, but only enough to let some steam out of the kettle. Always just enough to maintain their own status and privileges.”  
Art reflected upon his mindset of a few days ago: more or less content in San Francisco, as a mere bit part in the standard counterintel game. How could someone change so much in a matter of hours? He felt stronger, coarser, more committed. Inner strength came with awareness, the seeds of which had been planted by his dear parents decades ago. A sense of purpose infused his instincts, the good fight had begun to sustain him. He thought about the revelations he’d had since fleeing out the backdoor of the Rite’s residence: the Whitney Young memorial bridge and COINTELPRO; learning from Paul the full scope of D.C.’s attacks against Latin America; Maya and her intel organization actually working against capitalism and for the people; the corporate domination of the U.S. federal government; the Agency, and now the Rite, protecting and promoting capitalism at the expense of the people and the planet; and T as a role model, one way forward.  
“War, at least, distracts from dismal life, kills liberty, and pursues misery,” Maya warbled fluidly.   
“Saying throughout that the economy is healthy,” Art stated.  
“Well, by their numbers, the stock market might be through the roof, but the average Jane is strugglin’,” Maya tacked on.  
“Some historians have noted that Virginia was an armed garrison state for most of the slave trade period, but today it’s worse in certain respects,” Art said, darning the war industry into the conversation.   
“By far the most militarized state in the nation.”  
Mind on Virginia, Art asked, “Think the compound is okay? Think T is okay?”  
“Yes…”   
“Mmmm,” Art replied.  
“Even if they’re not, their spirit is still going strong. Creativity n’ resistance to oppression. They’re fine. They’ll be fine. They and folks like them’ll be fine. They rely on family, community, the great law of love, and the golden rule.”  
Feet scuffed the needles and grit beside the road beyond the pines. A middle-aged woman with sharp bangs and a puffy yellow vest walked by briskly, talking to her friend via smart phone.  
“She was usin’ my social media n’ she ke’t hittin’ up some guy named Melvin. The fuck with Melvin. Dude keeps callin’ me now.  
“Nah, she gets a hazelnut wi’ whipped cream. I don’t get that shit. I get a vanilla extra-extra.”  
Maya leaned in to Art and whispered, “Public knowledge is essential to a democratic, effective government.”  
Art let out a lone chuckle as his heart sank. To some extent, we got the government our ignorant asses deserved. He reflected on society’s miserable bread and circus. He was familiar with the standard techniques the Agency had used to prevent public awareness: deception, hypocrisy, and secrecy. He knew there must be more. He knew The Rite.   
“Meanwhile,” Art began, returning their conversation one last time to the state of the nation, “aid to the poor takes a tiny drop. The war industry takes the whole jerry can.”  
Maya chimed in, eyes on the ocean, not missing a beat. “War profiteers from the Mexican-American to Spanish-American wars, to the great World Wars, Korea and Vietnam, Panamá and Grenada, through to today’s endless war of terror and Cold War two-point-oh.”  
“These men are bad,” Art added, content with a simple analysis. “They deal in death while promising livelihood. They smile as they screw you, shake your hand as they rob you.”  
“They’re all too happy to send the troops all over, spread ’em across the globe.”  
“There’s a reason this country still glorifies the troops, putting special operations forces on an untouchable mantel.”  
“SOF, killers of peasants. And you wanna know why?”   
“Why?” Art asked, appreciating the knowledge, though his spirit sagged.  
“Because, at the heart of it, any popular rebellion or mass movement that opposes U.S. corporate interests on any turf, no matter the country, oughta be shut down…”  
“And we’re back to square one. Corporate profit comes above all else. Above human need. Above other animal need. And certainly above the needs of the only planet we’ve got.”  
“Now you see the need? The need for the divorce.”  
“The need for the Array to rise,” Art upheld.   
“Sick? Too bad. They’ll say get back to work. No health for you. Want peace? Too bad. They’ll start another war somewhere and send your sons and daughters to fight it.”  
Art got the impression Maya was standing at a podium, speaking to a crowd of thousands.   
She concluded, “… Stay and play by neoliberal economic policies? You’re screwed. Lash out and they demonize you, imprison or kill you.” In the next breath, she rallied. “Your mind can be the prison or the open field.”  
“Want to go for a swim?” Art asked, noticing rain clouds to the southwest.   
Visibly happy with the change in subject, Maya said, “Yes. But mission comes first. Tomorrow, we’ll swim, maybe. After we give the word.” She scooted closer to Art, their trouser legs now cozy neighbors. She whispered, “As my skin tingles, my heart looks out over this ocean.” Closer, she finished, “I feel revolution on the wind.”  
“We gotta stand up,” Art whispered to himself.   
A particularly large wave smacked the face of a boulder below.  
“It’s contagious,” Art said, realizing the words’ importance as he spoke them.   
Maya looked at him blankly.   
“People standing up. It’s contagious. The tide is rising.”  
A smile broke out on her face; it seemed to Art she had tried to stifle it but was unable. Art took that as confidence.   
“What do we have to lose? We already live in a dystopia, for god’s sake!”  
“Anyone can be an insurgent,” Maya said, getting to her feet. “Remember that… All it takes is awareness and a little courage,” she added.   
She took Art’s hand in hers and led him to the car. “First, we get cleaned up.”

New York, New York

Chertoff waited patiently in the rain. An awning beckoned just to his left, but he stood aside, preferring dampness to momentary comfort. Too many people were corrupted by such fleeting conveniences. He wouldn’t be weak like them. The rain tapped away at the shoulders of his trench coat. A minute passed. Chertoff studied the discrete plaque to the right of the heavy door. 44 Thomas Street, read the small chiseled letters.  
A faint click hit his ears. A tiny man whose stare seemed to never leave the ground cracked the door and extended his hand. Chertoff reached forward in the motion of a brief handshake. He slid his boney ring finger inside what looked like a hexagonal pulse monitor. A short needle pricked the meaty part of his palm. The tiny man withdrew. The hardened door, gilded with oak on the inside, closed with a whoosh. Chertoff sighed at the necessary routine, verifying and collating his fingerprint, blood sample, and voice ID.  
He looked up. The Grough contractors would be returning from their mission soon. He scowled, displeased at the short timetable he was working with. The rain danced along his brow. The colossal skyscraper cut into the sky. An imposing obelisk from his street view. Even more imposing below ground, Chertoff knew. The facility’s publically-stated aim—facilitate construction, operation, and maintenance of information technology architecture—was barely mentioned in government literature. The National Security Agency was never named. Designed by Dworkin, Gallo & Associates during the late Cold War, the forty-story building was built to withstand near point-blank atomic blast. How powerful? Chertoff had never got around to inquiring, but he assumed it was around 1.2 megatons. Fake panels, designed to look like slate windows, ran evenly along the sloping façade. Chertoff returned his eyes to the chiseled plaque next to the door. The bags below his eyes sagged heavily, calling for a cup of coffee before he pulled out of town.   
The mighty door opened, just broad enough to accommodate his shoulders. He stepped inside. A lone car honked along an adjacent street as the door shut, the lobby’s purring airflow soon reestablishing equilibrium.   
A hunchbacked U.S. Army major named Skeen greeted him with a granite stare behind a long thin table that reminded Chertoff of a lunch counter from a 1950s diner.  
“I am in AWM Five,” Chertoff informed the Major.   
“Roger,” Major Skeen said, typing Chertoff’s parking spot into a silver panel hip level. “Swipe here, please,” Major Skeen instructed, gesturing to the first station on the counter.  
Chertoff removed the lanyard from around his neck, selected the proper badge, and swiped slowly. A faint light blinked green thrice.   
Major Skeen nodded once in approval and stepped two paces to his right.   
“Sign here, please,” he stated, pushing a pristine clipboard forward a few centimeters.  
A pen descended from Chertoff’s sleeve into his right hand. He signed smoothly. The pen ascended once more.   
“Look here, please.” The army officer gestured to a grey box.  
Chertoff leaned into the retinal scanner.   
He removed his eyes from the scanner as Major Skeen asked, “What level?”   
“Sub fourteen,” Chertoff replied. Though the building loomed above the street, Chertoff would be heading down, to one of the fifteen levels below ground.  
The Major nodded. “You know where to go.”  
Chertoff nodded back, and turned to his left. He walked past the counter and down a flight of cold marble stairs. Beads of rainwater parachuted off his trench coat with each descending step. He reached a lone elevator after a few paces. The grate doors opened as he approached. Chertoff stepped inside. In appreciation of Major Skeen’s no-nonsense style, Chertoff whispered, “A rare professional,” as the elevator picked up speed.  
He descended past floors sub-three through sub-eight, recently renovated to accommodate the uptick in National Security Agency foot traffic, though the average NSA contractor typically stayed on premises for no more than four days.   
Through the grille door, plush facilities breezed past Chertoff’s view: cozy work areas, a lounge, an international gateway switch, a break room, dim conference rooms, and a command section. Most lay idle.   
A few key NSA personnel were tapping calls and sucking up and aggregating digital network intel in the layers and layers of SCIF above him. Intercepted at 44 Thomas, processed at Meade, and stored at Bluffdale. Targets included enemies, allies, and international organizations alike. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and NATO members were common targets. Every major and minor U.S.-based telecommunications corporation cooperated willingly, often gleefully, with NSA’s activities. Strategic partnerships, the bureaucratese informed. Grough Cyber handled a good portion of the hardware maintenance and software upgrades.   
Chertoff exited fourteen stories below Manhattan. Motion sensor lights flickered on as the elevator’s grille door opened. His boots squeaked authority along the polished concrete floor. Racks and racks of cables, wires, switchboards, and mainframes throbbed behind clear glass to his left. The window extended the length of the hallway in front of him. Dim emergency storage facilities sat to his right. Thick plastic yellow cases were stacked accessibly along the walls of the first room. Crates and crates of nonperishable foodstuffs decked the second room, enough to last thirty essential personnel over twelve weeks without resupply. Two reinforced 250,000-gallon fuel tanks hogged the far end of the floor beneath him. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Chertoff muttered.   
Motion sensor lighting winked off four meters behind him as he progressed down the hall.  
Two-thirds of the way down, Chertoff pivoted to the right, mid-stride. A small cubicle awaited him. Chertoff didn’t carry any mobile devices, and would never risk transmitting important information on a mobile device, no matter how ‘secure’ the application’s encryption. Pausing in New York City provided him the opportunity to check up on 44 Thomas Street as well as communicate via its state-of-the-art equipment.  
He stepped inside the small cubicle. Regardless of how many upgrades it underwent, its proportions always retained the look of a large ATM, though its contents were far more valuable.   
Chertoff logged in quickly. He spent ten minutes perusing a few days worth of TS/SCI – NOFORN intelligence reports before opening the private chat application, which he shared with eight other decision-makers, six of which were senior Agency officials. Nothing new there. He exited the chat application and opened his high-side email. An important report waited for him.  
He read the beginning of the report aloud. “Quantum intake, re: all available data, produced location of terrorists…” His eyes flickered back and forth, soon returning to the beginning of the single paragraph in order to re-read its contents.   
Satisfied with his thoroughness, Chertoff logged out and slid the keyboard back into the monolithic machine.   
“Northeast!” Chertoff snapped, pleased with the small victory, eager to end the battle, eager to wrap up the war.

Major Skeen noted the wry smile on Chertoff’s face as he walked Chertoff through the departure procedures. Major Skeen had never seen Chertoff smile before.   
Skeen shivered as the navy blue trench coat overlaying Chertoff’s gaunt frame disappeared onto the New York streets and the oak-gilded door whooshed shut. Skeen recognized power when he saw it. He knew Chertoff moved across federal agencies like a centipede across a dank basement floor. He considered Chertoff one of the greats, one of the silent men whose steely will trimmed history’s sails.  
Skeen rubbed his arm vigorously, dispelling the goose bumps. He sat down, and returned to writing his dry memoirs. The next distinguished visitor wasn’t due for another thirty-six hours. 

Southeast Connecticut

Approximately forty-five military members, including contractors, commemorated the holiday weekend by challenging themselves mentally as well as physically. The workout regimen they embarked upon was named after U.S. Navy Lieutenant Mike Hardy.   
“We wanted to host an event with a purpose.” That’s U.S. Army Major Screech Gruden, Combined Joint Stability Task Force—Yemen deputy director of communications. “By doing this hour-long workout, we observe the holiday from a different perspective, a respectful perspective.”  
Service members here honored the holiday and Hardy’s memory not with family time or a warm drink, but through a series of squats, pull-ups, and cardio stations. The drills were designed to invoke a sense of team spirit and humility, Major Gruden tells us.   
“We’ve had a lot of interest here at the base that just made it take off,” says Gruden, who hopes the event becomes an annual commemoration.   
“What a rush! It was great to be able to do this with all of my friends.” That’s Ensign Elisabeth Erickson, CJSTF-Y principal assistant deputy director for strategic posture and forecasting. “We’re such a great community. It’s really something special.”   
Event participants included service members and contractors, as well as members of French, Polish, and Italian militaries who have been deployed to the area. This diverse group reflects U.S. Central Command’s mission statement, which stresses the importance of diversity, and the international community’s holistic approach to addressing the region’s security challenges.   
“We sweat a lot,” one Polish officer tells us. “But the more we sweat, the more we care.”  
Reporting from Al-Mukalleh, Yemen, this is Jonathan Fritz for Public Radio Nation. 

Art turned off the radio. He didn’t have the energy to hide his disgust.   
“Why do you do that to yourself?” Maya asked, referencing Art’s repeated attempts to listen to public radio.  
“I don’t know,” Art replied crisply.   
“Turn it back on,” Maya ordered.   
Art looked at her askew.   
“Turn it back on.”   
Art complied. He reached out and turned on the radio. 

… fans of the popular gaming franchise have voiced their anger in a variety of ways. They say charging loyal fans during the course of gameplay to unlock players is unfair…

Maya adjusted the dial. Another newscast, the brief at the top of the hour, crackled in. Maya contextualized each topic. A popular airline had issued an apology for forcibly removing a passenger from one of their overbooked flights. The apology was only issued after the airline’s stocks dipped, Maya added. Fire destroyed a town near the largest mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maya noted that the reporter failed to mention that DRC remained one of the poorest countries on Earth, with foreign corporations taking billions and billions of dollars worth of wealth from its mines every year. Refugee flows streamed out of the Middle East and Africa. Maya critiqued the reporter, explaining that he failed to mention that these locations were precisely where D.C.’s wars were most intensely focused.  
Maya lowered the volume. “We gotta make sure our house is in order…” she sang.  
Her words and demeanor caught Art off-guard. They rang out of place in Art’s head.   
Art reached out and switched off the radio. His hand fell into the gap between his seat and the gearshift.   
“You should stick to Radio Free Liberty,” Maya joked.   
Art smiled. “My parents… They always told me to look for different opinions, to let those opinions challenge my viewpoint, and to test my convictions.”   
“Wanna tell me about your parents?” Maya asked. “They seem like good people.”  
“Not now,” Art said, kindly.   
“That’s what corporate media does,” Maya stated.  
“Huh?” Art said, happy to be spaced out, taking in the countryside.  
“That’s one of the things corporate media does. They might report on corporate malfeasance or capitalist pillage, though they’ll never highlight it as such. And they’ll never, ever, ever link the examples together.”  
“I’m not sure I understand,” Art said, happy to feel his upper vertebrae crack as he straightened up.  
“So they reported some of capitalism’s devastation. Everything they reported was because capitalism maximizes profits at the expense of humanity and the environment, but they didn’t mention that. They don’t even mention capitalism. They refuse to connect the dots.”   
Art thought about it. She’s right, he told himself, making a squishing sound with his left cheek. He liked the safety and comfort of Maya behind the wheel. He felt excited, rested, and refreshed, even if his most recent rest had been earned on the exposed metal in the back of the SUV.  
“Why Groton?” he asked, commenting on the passing road sign.  
“It’s where we give the word… to kick off Operation LBJ,” Maya replied.   
“What?”  
“Operation LBJ. The whole point…” Maya stopped herself with a quiet inhale.  
“What is Operation LBJ?”  
“It’s the beginning of the end,” Maya said through a hard grin. “The beginning of the end.”  
“And?”  
“Patience…” Maya click up her direction signal and merged into the far right lane.   
Art didn’t push. She’d explain when needed.  
“Did you ever hear LBJ talking about his penis?” Art asked.  
Maya giggled. “Nope. I haven’t.”  
“He was calling a tailor or a store owner to order new pants. And he had a bunch of special requests. One of them was to have more room beneath his crotch. It was pretty funny.”   
“Where’d you hear this? In a SCIF somewhere?”  
“No. The BBC, I think,” Art replied.   
“Ha!” I’ll have to look it up.”  
“Uh…” Art said, jaw low, as they lined up to exit Interstate 95 North. A giant grey sign—SUBMARINE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD—rose out of the hills on the right. The sign itself was shaped like a submarine. “What are you doing?”  
They exited the highway and coasted down the off-ramp.   
Maya gazed out the window, relaxed as she merged onto Route 12 North.  
“Here? Now? I figured we’d head up to Kittery or at least to Newport. But here?!”  
Maya inhaled slowly, one arm out the window, eyes mostly on the roadside foliage.   
“You know we won’t be allowed on base,” Art said, hoping she’d provide some soothing words for his rattled nerves.   
Maya smiled.   
They rounded a broad bend. The sun pranced across the hood of the car. Traffic slowed down a bit. Five lanes, four cars each, stood steady at the gates in front of them.   
“You’ve got a plan?” Art asked. “Tell me you’ve got a plan.”   
Maya looked to her right and winked at the glistening granite sign that marked the base entrance. “It looks new,” she remarked, wrinkling her nose at the well-groomed grass and the uninspired flower arrangement adorning its base.   
Their vehicle eased forward. Three cars remained until the gate.   
“Should I get out? Should I hide?” Art fretted, “I don’t have a valid common access card.”  
Maya’s smile broke briefly into a cough but returned with renewed vigor. She tapped her left breast pocket.  
Two cars remained in their lane.  
Art pressed his foot against the rust-soaked floor mat. He appraised the base security and, ludicrously, assessed their chances of subduing the attending military police. Slim to none, he determined. One sentry stood guard in front of each of the four pillars that divided vehicle traffic. Two patrols roved at varying depths into the waiting vehicles. The military police swayed with retractable mirrors at the end of long poles, adjusted M4 carbines, led German Shepherds, and stopped randomly to type information into thick tablets that swung at their sides.   
One car left.   
No cars left.  
Art thought he heard Maya sigh. Maya accelerated gently and stopped next to the guardhouse. A burly petty officer second class stepped forth, his primary weapon hung at low ready.   
“Morning,” he huffed.   
Maya reached into her breast pocket and produced two identification cards. Art summoned a casual smile and tried to make eye contact with the petty officer. He ended up focusing on the guard’s nose when he realized he couldn’t’ see through the man’s tinted ballistic glasses.  
“We’re on the special access roster,” Maya directed.   
“One moment, please,” the petty officer stated. He turned around and entered the guardhouse. One of his colleagues exited, walked around the front of their car, and approached the passenger side window. His chest bulged with lumpy pockets, a medical pouch, straps and carabineers, and several rows of ammunition.   
“Pop the trunk, please,” the second guard ordered.   
Maya complied, leaning forward and tugging forcefully at the old lever down by her knees. The second guard sauntered to the rear of the vehicle and raised the trunk door.  
“That creak oughta be heard for miles,” Art joked.   
Maya smiled politely.   
The burly petty officer stepped out of his guardhouse and returned with heavy feet.   
“Sorry for the delay, ma’am,” he thundered. Maya shifted her polite smile in his direction. The guard returned the identification cards to Maya. Art watched, doing his best not to fidget.   
The trunk slammed. The car bounced slightly.   
“Wear these at all times,” the petty officer ordered, producing two yellow badges with grey trim. He handed them over slowly.   
“Which way’s the Navy Lodge?” Maya asked, passing the badges to Art. Each badge was attached to a lanyard. Head down, Art rubbed the fabric. One lanyard, blue with yellow writing, read: U.S. NAVY BLUE ANGELS. The other lanyard, frayed, read: A GLOBA ORCE FOR GOOD.  
The petty officer raised his ballistic glasses and wedged them firmly in place across his brow. He leaned down to window level with a stern look. Projecting assured tranquility, Maya met his scrutiny evenly.   
“Bear right at the rotary, ma’am, and follow the signs,” he stated. He stepped back and gestured authoritatively. Maya accelerated slowly, giving the petty officer a parting nod.   
“How di—”  
“Shhh,” Maya whispered.   
Art inhaled, his heart taking a licking in the expanding chest.  
Her vehicle rolled forward slowly, almost sauntering through the layers of reinforced concrete and black steel. Silently, Art took in the base’s rolling hills basking, along with the distant woodland, in autumn’s glow. Trees, some ready for winter, shook nude, bark hugged tightly into bare smiles.   
Art wondered how many people within U.S. borders were capable of even understanding the natural processes around them. Would Mother Nature spare more energy to muster inspirational scenes like this so that a few humans could gain motivation or fresh thought long lost? No, he told himself, this autumn was different. This autumn foliage, what remained of it, screamed with extra hues to the ignorant virus that cragged, infested, and gouged the planet. Maya turned a bend, her vehicle the only one obeying the base’s absurdly low speed limit of ten miles per hour. Art’s gaze swayed down a nearby decline, over to the cold nuclear submarine docks, isolated from the rest of the base. Art pictured an autumn fog caressing the bough of nearby woods, boughs already bracing for the winter season. He closed his eyes for a moment to rest one sense. When he opened his eyes, rolling green hills throbbed above the woods behind the docks. We’re a virus, Art determined, acknowledging the planet’s perspective. These humans, at least, do not deserve winter, let along spring. Maya stopped at a rotary. Art closed his eyes again and strained to listen to the transitory winds, worrying that most humans possessed dry ears, bound up and unwilling to embrace momentary discomfort. He opened his eyes. Maya took the first road off the rotary and drove up a hill. The Navy Lodge sat a hundred meters up on the right. From the lofty hill, Art looked back at the main gates below, his eye catching additional security: Two 20mm rotary cannons in front of bulging, hoary radomes stared hard at the arriving cars. 

Maya turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open. Art glanced down at her forearm. A firm grip had sent her veins into a writhing bulge.   
“Where’d you come up with those names?” Art asked, referring to the surnames Maya used to check in to their room at the Navy Lodge.  
“I didn’t,” she replied, entering the room.  
“The Rear Admiral did?” Art asked.   
Maya nodded, opening her rucksack on the foot of the queen-sized bed.   
“Impressive,” Art conceded, testing the light switch next to the mirror in the entranceway.   
Maya began organizing her gear in to a few piles, taking up the rest of the quilt at the foot of the bed.   
Art looked around their room at the Navy Lodge. “It’s not bad.” White walls, a simple dresser, a flat screen TV that Maya had unplugged upon entering, a whitewashed ceiling, one window overlooking the parking lot, and a plastic-y bathroom. “Not bad,” he repeated.   
“Accommodations here are usually pretty decent,” Maya replied.   
“You’ve stayed at these placed before?”   
Maya ignored him. She stepped back, calculating something in her head and under her breath. 

They spent the afternoon and evening reading, exercising, packing and repacking, and napping. Rarely did they exchange more than word or two. They were comfortable with each other, comfortable in their silence. Art spent much time worrying about Chertoff. What was Chertoff up to? How far did his reach stretch? How long ago had Chertoff hunted him with a gunship? Two days? More? Then a drone. What would he use next? Twice Art tried meditating to calm his worries, but he only succeeded in popping his hip loudly. Dinner consisted of pizza, delivered from one of the base’s many restaurants. Maya tipped generously.   
As evening departed, Art sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall parallel to the bed’s headboard. He was tearing up the pizza box in his lap. Little shreds of cardboard floated down. They slowly piled up in the middle of his legs.   
The old clock radio on the bedside table, on the other side of the bed, crooned soft Baroque music. Maya pulled a small purple candle from her bag, lit it with an unseen match, and set it down next to the clock radio.   
“Do you mind if I kill the lights?” Maya asked.   
Art shook his head and thrust up his lower lip in the negative.   
“Quiet your mind,” Maya suggested. “Let your spirit be.”   
Art closed his eyes. Meditation came a little easier this time in the new ambiance. With deeper breaths, he soaked in the cool tingles of increased oxygen circulating in his brain.  
“You know,” Art said, breaking the silence. “I think I want to spend some time in the wild.”   
“What’s wilder than running from Chertoff, sneaking onto a military installation, and fighting the war industry?” Maya asked, allowing a tentative smile.  
“No, I mean the wilderness.”   
“Hmmm,” Maya replied, pausing ever so slightly. “That’s not a bad idea. We should go to the woods.”   
Art’s heart fluttered at the sound of ‘we’. He coughed. "What would you have done if the device you were tinkering with in the front seat hadn’t worked? If you couldn't have bribed the Rear Admiral?"   
Maya stood still for a moment. "I would have gone after one of any number of contractors on base. Actually, I should've done that to begin with. The war industry is so damn bloated, it's impossible to keep the beast free of rot."   
"One could even argue that the whole thing is rotten," Art said softly.   
"True," Maya replied.   
Art picked up a piece of cardboard from the circle between his legs—a shred he had deemed too thick—and slowly tore it into smaller bits. He then picked up the remainder of the pizza box and piled the shreds on top of it. He wondered how he’d reuse or repurpose these pieces. 

Art laughed and pressed his toes against the underside of the bed sheet, pulling it taut. It smelled of laundry chemicals.   
Maya rolled away from Art.   
A scrape and a shuffle on the other side of the wall behind their headboard reached Art’s ears as he admitted to himself for the first time that he was attracted to Maya.   
Maya fluffed her pillow and tucked it to her side.   
“I’m not worried about you. You’ll be fine,” Maya assured. “You’re inspired by nature, and you work to understand it. You’ll be fine.”   
Art felt his cheeks smolder at the random remark, possibly the first open compliment Maya had ever given him. And it was genuine and tender. 

“The surveillance state confines the citizenry, like they’re submarines operating in shallow water,” Rear Admiral Worrell stated. “A submarine can see through its periscope. A person can see around them. But neither has the freedom to maneuver. Both are limited in their movements. Both the sub and the citizen have to plan ahead through diligence and foresight.”  
Maya nodded. It was a feeble analogy, but she was content letting Worrell arrive at his own conclusions regarding the nature of the beast.  
“Did you walk here?”   
She nodded. “It’s a beautiful base. Beautiful location, I mean.”  
“Indeed, it is.” Rear Admiral Worrell handed Maya a mug of coffee. The Admiral looked somewhat withered in the pre-dawn ambiance of his study. The fluffy brown bathrobe did little to broaden his shoulders or accentuate his stature.   
Maya nodded her thanks. “May I have another one, please?”   
Worrell stepped back and looked at her through squinted eyes beneath a chiseled brow. He set his weathered hand on the back of a dark wooden chair across the glass coffee table in front of Maya. The lone desk lamp in his study cast a soothing blanket over the right side of his salted face. He hadn’t shaved yet today.  
“Aye, aye,” he said deferentially. He exited the study, his slippers treading lightly on the smooth floorboards.   
Maya watched the Admiral leave. He walked with a slight hobble. A hip problem, Maya guessed. She turned to scan the Admiral’s bookshelves. Worn bindings upon worn bindings, neatly arranged. Ordered well, by topic and then author. He’s read them all, she guessed. A tender glow radiated from behind the books at even intervals. The shelves covered most of the wall space in the tight, cozy study. Family pictures took priority over awards, medals, or coins. “Hmmm,” she exhaled.   
Maya considered the curious circumstances that had brought them together. After a little digging, she had initially blackmailed Worrell for access to the naval base. His involvement with Grough Defense and its bribery ring had been easy leverage. But her digging had uncovered more than just standard Navy corruption. She had uncovered layers of dormant scandals. For example, the very same Pentagon defense contractor with whom the Admiral was bribing sailors was also hacking congressional representatives and Pentagon officials on behalf of third parties. As long as the price was right, Grough would play ball. Worrell’s wife, as it were, was hacked to find weaknesses that would advantage her political rivals. Small world. Or big corporate reach.  
“I’ve never heard of an e-book,” Worrell said with a soft chuckle, noticing Maya’s sleepy gaze floating across his bookshelves. He stepped into the study. He handed her another mug.   
“Thank you,” Maya said. Even the handle was hot. She set the mug down next to its mate on the coffee table between them. She took another deep look around her. An antique globe stood prominently above the small fireplace to the right of the Admiral’s desk.   
Worrell sat down on the wooden chair. His brow furrowed. He cupped his knees and sat tall.  
The small talk is over, Maya discerned.   
“Grough has gained access to your wife’s email,” Maya said sternly.   
Worrell nodded. He rotated his left hand, palm up. Maya took that as a signal for her to explain.   
“Britt was the victim of a phishing attack. She downloaded a document from a trusted friend whose email had been compromised. The friend was not the target. She was just a vehicle. Your wife was the target. Once Grough gained access to your wife’s account, they owned you. It was only a matter of seconds before your router and accounts were then compromised.”   
“Give it to me straight. What do they have?”  
“Admiral, you can assume they’ve got everything.”  
“Everything?” His voice was calm. He sniffed once, quickly.   
“Credit card details, office gossip, pictures, your family tree, any computer programs you’ve accessed, geographic location where the laptop is used.” Maya took a breath. “And any and all calls made from the computer.”  
“Jesus Christ,” the Admiral whispered.   
“No, sir. Just capitalist profit,” Maya corrected. “Also, assume all social media accounts are compromised, too.”  
“What about encryption? Aren’t most apps these days encrypted to some extent?” His voice wavered like a seaman practicing for the promotion board.  
“Sir, this malware snags your data at the source, before it’s encrypted.”  
“Understood,” Worrell said, reestablishing a veneer of calm.   
“We can also presume they’ve activated the camera on your wife’s laptop remotely.” Maya took a sip.  
“What are you saying?”   
“I’m saying… I’m saying they might have compromising pictures of you or your wife. Compromising pictures and any sound picked up from the built-in microphone.”  
“Everything,” Worrell realized. “Like you said in your text, Grough knows I was planning on quitting my partnership with them. Things could get ugly.”  
“Everything,” Maya reiterated. “Even the amateurs out there’ll log all keystrokes made from a device they infect. Therefore, they’ve got everything.”  
“I see,” Worrell said.  
Maya did her best to straighten her spine and relax her shoulders. She read much worry on the Rear Admiral’s face. Sexual peccadillos, perhaps rare in taste, part of his burden.  
“So why me? Why us?” Worrell’s eyes remained focused on his mug on the coffee table.   
“We think a third party paid Grough to hack you and your wife.”   
“Who? Can we track them? Find out the final customer?” His eyes stayed down, though his chin rose.  
Maya was impressed with Worrell’s bluntness of how the system works. “You? You can’t in a personal capacity. They’ve got dedicated servers scattered around the world and multiple intermediaries.”   
“So that’s it?”   
“Sir,” Maya said, feeling a bit guilty there wasn’t more she could do right now. “Don’t feel bad. Most state and local governments around the world are doing this.”  
“Thanks,” Worrell said flatly.   
Realizing her poor attempt at cheering him up hadn’t worked, she offered, “Change all your passwords, alert your wife’s campaign team, and play solid defense.”  
“Then?”  
“Then, I’d unplug for a bit. Use this as an opportunity.”   
Worrell looked up. He cocked his head almost imperceptibly.   
Maya studied him for a moment. The man wasted no movement.  
“An opportunity?” Worrell asked. He adjusted his robe over his pajamas, drawing the lapels closer together.   
“Maybe it’s a good time to reset. Maybe take a vacation. Hell, maybe it’s time to retire.”   
Worrell inhaled deeply, returning some form to his sunken figure.   
“You’re not conceding defeat. You’re—”  
“You know,” Worrell interrupted. “I can see it now. ‘Our company neither knows nor desires to know the identities of the people its customers choose to target. While we do not comment on confidential business transactions, there is no evidence that our software had anything to do with these absurd allegations. We operate in strict compliance with all local and federal laws.’”   
“Their legal teams are the best in the business,” Maya agreed.  
“I’ve worked with a lot of these private military corporations over the years,” Worrell admitted. “I’ve seen them grow exponentially in power and influence. I can’t fight them on the inside. They’re too powerful.”   
“Then fight them on the outside,” Maya suggested. She stood up. “But fight them somewhere.”  
“Keep the mugs,” Worrell ordered. “I’ll be moving soon. You’re just helping to lighten my load.” He smiled, looked up at Maya, and then stood up slowly.   
Maya wondered for the first time about his political inclinations.  
Worrell extended his hand. Maya stepped forward and shook it firmly.   
“We’re square?” Maya asked.   
“It’s all even,” Worrell affirmed. “And thank you for this knowledge. It went far beyond the terms of our original…” Worrell searched for the world.  
“Our original deal,” Maya offered, picking up both mugs.   
“Indeed.”   
Worrell gestured with an open palm for Maya to exit the study. “I’ll walk you out.”   
Maya took a right outside the study door, walked softly down the dark hallway, and opened the front screen door with her elbow. A faint light glowed under a door at the top of the stairs. Britt Worrell reading in bed, Maya concluded.   
“You know, I’ve always kept my house unlocked. I’ve always felt safe on base,” Rear Admiral Worrell said, holding open the flimsy screen door.   
Maya didn’t know what to say. She wanted to help Worrell with what she assumed to be his imminent awakening, but she kept her mouth shut. Now wasn’t time. She nodded appreciatively, stepped down onto the simple stone walkway, and set off into a cool dawn fog.   
The screen door creaked shut behind her, followed by the firm thwump and click of a heavy wooden door fitting into its jamb.   
“Privacy is secrecy, secrecy is terror,” Maya stated, parroting one of U.S. Cyber Command’s recent declarations as she turned left onto the sidewalk. Tautog Avenue cut across the distant horizon. “Time to get the job done.” She picked up the pace. “Time to get the job done.”

Dawn danced through the drawn blinds.   
Art yawned and rolled over. Peeking through his left eye, he noticed Maya’s side of the bed was empty. He reached out his hand. The sheets were cold.  
Art planned. We finish this job and then figure out the next step. He tossed the blankets aside and popped out of bed. Leaning against the table in the corner, Art began stretching his thighs and calves. He felt good.   
“I was wondering when you were going to get up,” Maya said, entering the room and sliding her keycard into her breast pocket. She was balancing two mugs against her bosom with her other hand.  
Art glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “It’s not even six AM.”   
“Yeah… well…” Maya said with a smile. She handed him a mug of coffee and placed hers on the nightstand.   
“Thank you,” Art replied. “You look tired,” he observed in the dawn light.   
“Thank you,” Maya said with a soft laugh. She walked up to the stand-alone sink and turned on the faucet.   
“You sleep okay?”  
“I slept pretty deep, but I guess I kept waking up.” Maya began scrubbing her hands, working up a frothy foam.   
“Did you dream?”   
“Did you?” she said without looking up from the soap dish.   
Art walked to the sink. “I asked you first,” he said as he leaned in to pick up his toothbrush. He accidentally brushed Maya’s left breast with his elbow. He coughed quickly, embarrassed that he was embarrassed.   
If Maya noticed the physical contact or Art’s embarrassment, she did not let on.  
“I met with the Admiral,” Maya said softly.   
“So we’re good? We can go home now?” Art said, jokingly.   
“No,” Maya replied.   
“Of course.”  
Disappointment blindsided Art’s heart. He wanted to stay with Maya, learn from her, and grow to be a better person. She knew so much and he knew relatively nothing, he reasoned. Her tone… Was she feeling the same sadness?  
“Have I shared with you the next step?” Maya asked, applying a teardrop of toothpaste to her index finger.   
“—ope,” Art answered, mouth full of minty paste.  
“Operation LBJ,” Maya stated. She then began scrubbing her teeth with her finger.   
Art spit into the sink and then leaned over to put his mouth under the faucet. He swished the water around his mouth a couple of times. He then took a long draught and stood up. Maya did the same, cleaning off her forefinger afterwards on the inside of her t-shirt.   
Art hummed an oldies classic. He strolled over to the bed and flopped down.   
“Operation LBJ is going to clear my name?” Art asked, eyes on the ceiling.   
“If Operation LBJ goes according to plan, we won’t have to work that hard to clear your name.”  
“Are you always this vague? You say we’re on the same team, yet you don’t tell me much.”   
“Operation LBJ,” Maya allowed, “is design to push back against imperialism. Its aim is to take the superpower down a notch. It’s the beginning of the end.”  
“And when is my name going to be cleared? When can I go back?”  
“Go back to what?” Maya challenged, sticking her head around the bend. “You honestly want to go back to working for the Rite?”  
She was right, Art conceded. “I have a question.” The ceiling’s blank slate offered him hope.   
Maya eyed him with a knowing smirk. “What’s that?” she asked. “And don’t get too comfortable,” she added. She walked over to her bag in the corner and began changing her shirt.   
“Why wasn’t I selected to join your group? The Array, was it?”   
Maya smiled slyly. “You think we’re actively recruiting?”  
Art savored her expression. He found it nourishing and motivational. “I do.”  
“You were on our radar, but we didn’t want to rush anything. We take our time, one of the benefits that comes with avoiding becomin’ a huge bureaucracy.”  
“So you’re saying I might have been selected?” Art wondered aloud.  
“That’s what I’m saying. We’d’ve probably waited a year or two for you to get some more counterintelligence experience, and then we’d make our approach.”  
Art smiled. “Do you want your coffee?”   
“I’ll get it in a sec,” she replied. “Do you normally dream?” Shirt half on, she tinkered with her rucksack, slowly unzipping and re-zipping the side flap.  
“I do, but I usually forget it shortly after I wake up. Do you?”   
“Yeah, I love the dream world.”  
“Did you dream last night?” Art asked, returning to an earlier line of thought.   
Maya nodded slowly, lightly. She stood up wearing a brown t-shirt, like the shirt worn under the old battle dress uniform. “He killed many people, yet he’s human,” she said, taking a seat on the foot of the bed.  
Art moved his feet aside as she sat down.   
“He killed those who were driving the world to ruin,” Maya announced.  
Art listened respectfully as she talked about her most recent dream.  
“So he was rewarded,” Maya concluded.   
“What did it all mean?” Art asked.   
“You know I’ll clear your name, right?”   
Art nodded.   
“Right?”  
“Yes,” Art admitted. “I know you’ll clear my name.” He had faith in her.  
“Listen,” Maya directed. She made a fist with her right hand and in slow motion punched Art on the shin.  
Art looked at his legs crossed on the bed in front of him. Maya’s right pinky knuckle balanced along his left shinbone.   
“Today we initiate Operation LBJ,” Maya said sternly. He had never seen her so dour. Even during their toughest times together—saving Art from the incoming bomb in the slum, breaking into Chertoff’s apartment, and dragging Art from the rubble of the missile attack on their car—she had always worn some shade of a grin.   
Art had a couple jokes on hand, but he read Maya’s demeanor and swallowed his humor.   
“How can I help?”   
Maya laid out her plan concisely. Art could tell from her delivery—terse, direct, and detailed—that she had been planning this for a while. He admired her diligence and commitment.  
Art blinked hard and adjusted his pillow.   
“So I’m the courier and you’re the distraction?” He wondered if she was telling him everything.  
“Essentially,” Maya replied, somber and avoiding eye contact. “More like you’re the courier and I’m on watch.” She scooted up on the bed. “Look, if you’ve got any reservations about this—”  
“Are you kidding? Your organization is good. You’re good. Your cause is just,” Art affirmed. “I’m all in.”  
“You have to promise me one thing, though…” Maya leaned in.

The fog perched, almost swaying, like cold gelatin.   
“Seven November, nineteen eighty-three.”  
“Un-Able,” the captain replied.   
Art nodded, the significance of the code exchange sinking in. Able Archer had been an annual, large-scale NATO military exercise during the Cold War. NATO troops roamed Western Europe during Able Archer 83, at the high of enmity between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Nuclear weapons of various classes on multiple delivery mechanisms were on high alert across the continent.  
“How close?” the captain led off. His voice was iron.  
“How close?” Art asked, unsure of the captain’s intent.   
Art took in the captain’s face: dark black hair, vicious grey eyes, flat nose. The man’s white teeth stood out, ramrod straight.  
“We came within seconds of nuclear war.”  
Art knew that the 1983 exercise had involved long stretches of complete radio silence and the use of new National Security Agency Central Security Service-approved encryption. He knew about NATO armies moving in provocative formations and deployments. He knew NATO air forces loaded, taxied, and flew live ordnance. All this had terrified Moscow in 1983.  
Art produced an envelope containing the instructions for the captain.  
The captain’s eyes never left Art’s.  
Art rooted his feet into the ground in order to hold the man’s stare.  
“The Red Army, men and women no different than us, thought that D.C. was about to attack them with nuclear weapons.”  
“Millions dead,” Art empathized.  
The captain nodded. Or the fog wobbled. Art couldn’t tell. Where was the captain going with this? What was the captain trying to tell him? It wasn’t just Able Archer 83. It wasn’t just a history lesson. It was something else. What?   
Art offered up some history. “The Soviet response showed their fear. They went into rapid, total preparation for nuclear war, including calling up their civil defense, getting their nukes ready, and grounding non-military air travel.”  
The captain cleared his throat.  
Enough history. Art stepped forward and extended his arm, envelope in hand.  
Eyes still locked on Art, the captain accepted the envelope.   
“Sir…” Art wanted to leave. Get the hell off of Naval Submarine Base New London. He had done what he had come for.   
In a flash the captain grabbed Art’s wrist. “You think we’re out of the woods?” the captain’s iron voice clanged.  
“No. I do not.”   
“I have a duty to this country. I will not let it die under nuclear winter so some fat cats in defense industry boardrooms can get an extra twelve million each in bonuses for promoting nukes as viable weaponry.”  
“Corporate capture,” Art commiserated, referencing how U.S. weapons manufacturers practically ran D.C.’s policy on matters of war and peace.  
“All those industry CEOs are bent shitcans,” the captain affirmed.  
Art yanked his wrist free. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”   
“Not as long as war is a racket. Not as long as we allow war to be a racket.”  
“And this is the first step,” Art assured.  
“The official history blames Soviet paranoia for their response in November 1983. But they weren’t paranoid; they knew their enemy,” the captain stated. “Moscow knew—Moscow knows—better than most Americans how D.C. operates.”  
Art had completed his mission, the simple handoff. But the man—the captain, an unforeseen ally—was a magnetic mystery. Out of respect and even a little awe, Art found himself staying.  
“Nothing has changed. Hair triggers still determine our fate.”  
Art had to ask. “Why’d you… Why this? Why this way?” His words came out in a torrent.  
The captain glanced behind himself, towards the high-security docks in fog’s embrace. “Able Archer 83 was a symptom of D.C.’s insanity. Moscow was hyped as an enemy, pure evil, throughout the Cold War, when in reality they were almost always playing catch-up to the U.S. war industry. And they never even attempted global hegemony, unlike D.C.”  
“Forget all we think we know,” Art soothed, agreeing.  
“The U.S. war industry and Capitol Hill will never stop. They’ll always find an enemy. They’ve now circled back around and are demonizing the Russians once again.”  
“So this is it.” Art took a step back. “The state of permanent war must end,” he said.  
“Nuclear weapons, like the fleet’s ballistic missiles, don’t discriminate,” the captain grumbled, as if reassuring himself. “I don’t trust humans to have this capability and not use it. My actions today will help overthrow the corrupt system that protects and promotes these immoral beasts.”  
Art shifted his weight, looking at the docks and then at the captain’s punitive grey glare.  
“You don’t know what this is, do you?” the captain asked, brandishing the envelope.  
Art shook his head.  
“It’s a date. Nothing more. Nothing less.”  
“Time,” Art whispered.  
“Time,” the captain replied. “Time to go.” His voice rose. “Time for all of us to go. They get this, they go. You and I, too, need to go.” He paused as if waiting for Art to finish the scattered thoughts.  
Art opened his mouth.  
Abruptly, the captain pivoted and double-timed it away, back into the cloud. No handshake. No parting farewell. Down to the docks, down to the waiting tugs.  
Art wasted no time. He hustled back to his SUV, refusing to look back, mumbling, “Everyone’s got their reasons.” He closed the door, shook his head, and turned the key. What were the captain’s ultimate allegiances? How many other unlikely allies were out there? How many would he encounter? The clock on the dashboard grimaced; Art had only been in the captain’s presence for a few minutes. Art accelerated and took a right on to the main drag. He checked his rearview mirror. A squad car pulled in behind him on the otherwise empty road. Military police.

“Shit,” Art whispered. He accelerated slightly. The gates were less than one football field away. “Just down the hill,” Art coaxed his car. “Just down the hill.”  
The clock on the dash winked—another minute passed.  
“Just through the gates.”  
The military police vehicle accelerated, keeping pace with Art.  
“Just through the gates,” Art repeated.  
The gates, twenty meters away. A final hurdle. Nightmare almost over. Well, this stage of the national nightmare almost over. The gates were wide open, enticing him.  
He let up on the gas to navigate the new configuration of force protection measures—barriers, cones, and military police standing with carbines at low-ready. Mind focused, Art coasted past a particularly chubby MP standing guard. The man nodded towards the guard shacks; the gates began to close.  
Breath chopping in cadence with his racing heart, Art looked in his mirror. The military police vehicle was still on his tail, its lights now flashing. Art floored the gas pedal, breezing by the guard shacks and crashing into the closing gates. The impact redirected him into the center lane divider; grit flew, tires peeled, and he was out! Free from the submarine base, and roaring up the incline. Though the base police were still behind him, closing fast.   
He was headed towards the highway onramp when the inimitable rip of the 20mm rotary cannon cut through the night air behind him. Maya.  
The military vehicle on his tail turned back.

Maya threw the stolen vehicle in reverse. The engine was smoking but still responsive as she released the clutch: the MP’s M4 carbines had caused more damage than the M61 20mm rotary cannons; Maya knew just how close to get to the gates before the cannons’ sensor suite engaged.   
The towering gear stick in her stolen 1990 pick-up truck shifted smoothly, and the clutch responded perfectly to her foot’s pressure.   
Blood beaded along the stick shift knob, obscuring the image of the common shift pattern faded on top, as she ripped a patch on the fresh asphalt, careening around the rotary in reverse.   
Three military police squad cars followed in pursuit, sirens screaming.  
Shifting into first gear, Maya spun the wheel and accelerated towards the other side of the submarine base. Her attack had worked; the squad car pursuing Art had been called back to address Maya’s unfolding scene on base. Art was home free. Or so she trusted.

New England, U.S.A.

A young schoolteacher on the outskirts of Chicopee, Massachusetts, leaned over the water fountain. The cool drink and autumn breeze provided welcomed relieve from the thirst brought on by a rowdy class. The tap water, poisoned with thallium and trichloroethylene from the nearby Air Reserve Base, began damaging her organs immediately. 

An NSA employee, who got her start as a linguist for the U.S. Navy, walked to her car at New Boston Air Force Station. She had just finished scrolling through excerpts from a United Nations Security Council meeting. She had flagged a personal conversation, an aside between the Uruguay representative and a Venezuelan aide. She had dropped the conversation, which was rife with sexually explicit innuendo, into the Agency Interest file. 

A sad man drove north from a war corporation in Burlington, Massachusetts, to his home in Manchester, New Hampshire. He parked his truck in the driveway, shuffled to the front door, and opened it. He put on a pot of coffee and then drooped into his desk chair, immediately checking his account on a popular video sharing website, hoping more people had voted up his most recent witty comment. No one had. He sent out a mass text. Nobody replied. He moped to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee. He returned to his desk chair. He turned off his electronics: TV, smartphone, and laptop. He sat there in the dark, contemplating, refreshing. Suddenly, after an hour of ruminating, he hopped out of his chair, grabbed a book off the shelf, and fled outside.

A disgruntled man exited an oceanographic institute in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. He had spent his morning trying to inventory all the mobile devices recently issued for a joint USSOCOM/USNORTHCOM operation conducted in partnership with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. $1.3 million worth of gear was still unaccounted for. He licked the resin off an energy drink can and dropped his keys, the final fumble of the day. Enraged, he kicked his keys the rest of the way to his car. He slammed his car door with all his might.

A Harvard academic floated down the front steps of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Today he had secured a lucrative contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. His peers at MIT, an institution known to vacuum up a lot of the Pentagon deals in the Boston area, would be jealous. He could picture their faces. Tonight he would celebrate. Only his supervisor, the department chair, and a dean would be aware of the DARPA contract, due to the sensitivity of the research.

A hen harrier flew over the Boston Common and landed softly on the western ledge of the Massachusetts State House. Generations of history lay before her. Abenaki, Pequot, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and others had once thrived in the area. Cycles ruled the day, the season, and the years. What now covered the area—destructive industry and a thriving war machine—would inevitably fade. That dip could, would, lead to a collapse, which would lead to rebirth, renewal, and rekindling of the old ways. It was only a matter of time. She was happy. She took flight, grateful for the wind, which coaxed her south. She soon caught sight of an SUV barreling in the opposite direction.


	10. Chapter 10

Connecticut-Rhode Island border

Swallowing a bit of bile, Art raced north on I-95. Images of Maya’s sacrifice peppered his vision; the WELCOME TO THE OCEAN STATE sign barely registered. He let up on the gas pedal and merged into the right-hand lane. He wanted to scream.  
Tears blurred the white line. The rumble strip alerted him to veer left.   
“Think, think! What would she do? She’d stop blubbering, for starters,” he said, forcing a single laugh. He checked his rearview mirrors.   
Traffic appeared heavy but moving.  
“Okay, Okay.” Art sniffled. “You did what she ordered you to do. You delivered the message to the submarine captain. You followed her extraction route to the letter. Don’t beat yourself up.”  
He tried to distract himself. He thought about the delivery. He had been expecting the captain to utter no more than a syllable or two, nothing much beyond the keyword. He pictured the captain walking away, briskly into the fog.  
Art looked down at his hands, gripping the steering wheel like he was choking every drop of life from it. He examined his knuckles, tendons bulging. He pictured the 20mm rotary cannons unleashing a barrage against Maya in her stolen vehicle. He imagined the twenty-millimeter ammunition chewing up the engine block and cutting through her chest at 4,500 rounds per minute. A fine distraction, though. As was Maya’s way, it had been timed to perfection. He dropped his head, barely keeping an eye on the road ahead.  
“Always three steps ahead.” But no amount of planning could have contended with the full might of the war industry hardware that the military police must have unleashed on her vehicle. He slapped himself in the face, sending a few saline drops across the dash.   
“Damn.” Art conceded to the SUV’s desolate interior, all hope fallen. He rolled down his window and spit a wad of snot into the middle lane.  
He drove and drove and drove, mind and mien mostly frozen, each kilometer forcing him to review the next step, but his thoughts fluttered like a loose sail in the wind.  
He ignored low fuel warning light when it pinged the first time.   
The SUV made it a few miles north of Providence, Rhode Island, before rolling into a gas station on an empty tank. Mind battered and bruised, Art needed a minute to figure out how to open the gas cap. The inability to efficiently complete this small task fed more feelings of inadequacy and loss.   
Yelling on the inside, Art noticed a new emotion creeping in. He missed the simplicity of Maya’s car and the Russians’ car not having to fill up with gasoline. He ached for Maya, an actual savior, as he fed a crisp fifty-dollar bill into the machine reader.   
He adjusted the ball cap on his head, his chin tucked. Just as the wind momentarily distracted his mind from the loss of Maya, he looked down. The nozzle of the gas pump resembled a smoking 20mm barrel. He could picture the scene: Maya stealing a vehicle from the military police headquarters, gathering steam, maybe squad car after squad car joining the chase; Maya ramming the gates outside the nuclear weapons pen, the most highly-guarded section of the base, with such force that… Art stopped. He looked up. The flat screen, chest-height on the pump, was playing a jewelry commercial with a holiday theme. He speculated some more: Maybe Maya went out in a different inferno, storming the guard shacks, guns blazing.  
He reviewed some of Maya’s wisdom, a momentary tribute: Capitalists play on your fears and dreams in order to induce you to buy their junk. Don’t go out into the natural world. The natural world is only there to be harvested or extracted and turned into goods for the consumer. You should stay indoors and consume. It’s only a click away. Your appetites… manufactured. No culture is permitted, except for the homogenous blob benefitting D.C. and other centers of economic power.  
Art shook his head. The pump had stopped. Dangerous thoughts fell to the curb. Art re-holstered the pump. The handle was cold. His depression mounted, aware that other dangerous thoughts would come in due time.   
He refocused. Maya must have studied the Navy’s force protection measures night after night. Her distraction had been perfect; pulling military police to her, away from the gates, away from Art, ensuring he would be free to flee—black dawn blanketing her kindly. He recalled the promise he had made to her back at the Navy Lodge: no matter what, I will keep driving.   
Art got back into the car, started the engine, and accelerated slowly.  
He considered the development of the 20mm rotary cannon. The version that protected the front gates and the nuclear weapon pen at Naval Submarine Base New London had originally been developed to protect D.C.’s overseas bases. Another weapon, home to roost. He shook his head. The cannon’s bulging, hoary radomes and the blistering barrels stayed firmly in his mind. He shook his head again. A dilapidated shopping mall passed along the right side of the highway. Grass sprouted everywhere amid miniature hillocks throughout the shattered blacktop. Where had he seen that before?  
Against all will to the contrary, he pictured how Maya might have faced death. She was laughing. Her eyebrows were wiggling, motivating him to embrace his true nature as a rebel.  
The relentless hum of the tires on the road beneath him cycled images of Maya in his mind, through and through, all on hypnotic repeat.

Boston, Massachusetts

The veteran Department of Homeland Security official never smiled, at least as far as his colleagues knew.   
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, accepting the headset from the previous shift leader inside the spacious North End Fusion Center, a granite behemoth built on the grounds of the old athletic fields west of U.S. Coast Guard Base Boston. Having been with the Department of Homeland Security since its inception, the official was now director of the Office of Biometric Identity Management within the National Protection & Programs Directorate.   
He donned the headset, genuinely excited for another day on the job. He lived for this.   
“Afternoon, agents,” he began, broadcasting to homeland security, intelligence professionals, and Boston Metropolitan law enforcement. “Shift change up here in the nest. I’m Director Callahan and I’ll be with you for the next seven hours. Stay sharp out there. We’ll be in touch in”—he glanced at his thick watch—“fifty-four minutes.”  
Director Callahan prided himself on never sitting down while on duty. He walked over to the wall of security monitors. With practiced efficiency, he scanned Logan Airport’s arrival lounges in consecutive order, taking extra time to peruse Terminal E, which served all international flights.   
He then walked over to a deputy’s cubicle. Shaking his gaze from the crisply ironed edges of Callahan’s uniform, the deputy leaned over and typed in a few commands, checking the status of the facial recognition technology employed across Routes 95, 93, 90, including all tunnels in the metropolitan area. Director Callahan nodded approval. The deputy sat tall in his chair and flicked the orange lid on the plastic mug he had gotten for free from New England’s most frequented coffee franchise.   
ONLINE, GREEN came the computer system’s blinking response.   
“Good,” Callahan said to no one in particular. He strutted back to the elevated center of the control room, his preferred perch. From this sight, he could scan all inbound and outbound vehicular traffic, every track at North and South Stations, police and Northern Command checkpoints across the city, and all airport security inspection points.

The entrance to the O’Neill tunnel swallowed Art’s vehicle like a calcified white whale.   
Art cracked a window and embraced the stale smell. His eyes flitted to and from the rearview mirror. The vehicle was still with him, five cars back.  
“Chertoff,” Art snarled. “I’ve been burned.” He crossed the solid white line in order to overtake two cars. He observed Chertoff do the same, closing the gap.  
Art inhaled and relaxed, knowing that’s what Maya would have done.   
“She’d also have laughed and hit the gas,” Art instructed. One part of his mind reviewed the rest of the route Maya had laid out for him. These thoughts skipped to Maya’s eyes. The look she had given him. He wondered again what her eyes might have declared at the moment of death. A release, Art determined. He envisioned her excited at the prospect of a burden lifted.   
“Aarrrgh!” Art yelled. Somewhere in his guttural pitch bubbled acknowledgment of his predicament. “Chertoff’s leading me into a dead end.”  
Like thick comets, the tunnel’s overhead lights flicked by.  
“And here I am, in the middle of a freaking tunnel,” Art admitted, passing tightly in front of a big rig just as the Logan Airport exit blurred by to the left. Despite all, Route 93 was still a better route than 95; the beltway around Boston was swarming with war corporations—Grough Defense alone had offices in Waltham, Woburn, and Lexington—not above testing out sundry devices on passing vehicles.  
Sweat drenched his lower back, belying his somewhat wistful facial expression. Running through his list of options, he imagined himself roaring out of the O’Neill tunnel and bursting through layers of roadblocks. 

From seven different angles, Caragrip’s latest block VI plug-and-play technology scanned all of the faces traveling northbound on Route 93 into and out of the O’Neill tunnel.   
The smallest panel in the deputy’s cubicle blinked red.

Chertoff, Bertram Johnston – USA  
DOB unknown   
THREAT severe

“Sir!” the deputy yelled, wheeling back from his cubicle to make way for Director Callahan’s wide approach.   
Callahan paraded over to the cubicle, flicking a recalcitrant piece of fluff off his epaulet en route.   
“We’ve got a high-value target,” the deputy explained.   
Callahan scanned the deputy’s panels, looked down at the deputy, and then scanned the panels once more.   
The deputy asked, “This is accur—?”  
“The algorithm has never been wrong before,” Callahan affirmed. “And the suspect’s already in the system.”  
“A new entry,” the deputy noted hesitantly.  
“The suspect is in the system,” Callahan declared again, dominating the wavering deputy.  
“The program is solid,” the deputy concurred, sorry for his lapse in faith.

“Go ahead and give the order,” Callahan instructed walking back to the elevated center of the control room. He let slip a smile; snagging such a big fish would guarantee his promotion to the Senior Executive Service.  
The deputy put the High-Value Target’s information up on the big screen. Callahan followed closely. He issued an order to all employees in the North End Fusion Center: “All eyes on the priority HVT. Coordinate through your respective project leaders.”  
“MTF, how copy?” The deputy hailed the head of a mobile task force via the latest land mobile radio system, which was designed and marketed by a corporation based in Lynchburg, Virginia. The task force manning the Zakim Bridge checkpoint was one of dozens across the city, each of which staffed by a platoon of Homeland personnel.  
“Loud and clear,” came the well-oiled response from the head of the task force. Director Callahan listened in.  
“We’ve got HVT on 93 North exiting the O’Neill tunnel,” the deputy relayed.  
“Status?”   
“Northbound, exiting now… three meters removed, ten meters…” The deputy forwarded the vehicle’s make, model, and coordinates to all regional DHS mobile devices.  
“Roger. We see ’em,” the mobile task force leader confirmed.  
“Tag ’em and yank ’em,” the deputy ordered.   
“Understood. Over.”

Only a few red taillights met Art’s eyes as he exited the tunnel onto the ensuing incline. Traffic seemed slow in the right-hand lane, but Art was cruising along in the left. He checked his mirror—Chertoff was right behind him.

Chertoff accelerated when the eight-wheeled armored vehicle showed up behind him. A darling of the U.S. war industry, the mine resistant ambush protected vehicle, MRAP, blared sirens and roared its engine.   
Chertoff pressed the accelerator harder. He roared by a squad of Homeland personnel, stationed behind their booth on the shoulder. Their necks turned, holding expressionless faces.  
Chertoff reached the far side of the bridge. The fork for Route 1 approached fast.   
The shutter on the third-generation electromagnetic pulse camera blinked once. Chertoff’s vehicle shuddered, lurched, and died. With no power steering, Chertoff strained hard to utilize the remaining momentum to pull the car over.

“This will only take a second, sir,” the DHS platoon leader said, perusing Chertoff’s identification cards.   
“Gentlemen, I assure you,” Chertoff began. A commanding assertion of his authority, or at the most a phone call to his assistant followed up with a discrete flash of an identification card, should handle this. He spoke up, but the cars racing by drowned out his words. Two sergeants finished patting him down.  
Chertoff started pacing back and forth along the eastern railing. His navy blue trench coat flapped in the wind.  
“Sir, please stand still,” the platoon leader requested, affording Chertoff due deference.  
Chertoff lengthened his strides along the bridge’s gritty shoulder.   
A sleek black headset curved round the platoon leader’s temples. Whispering into his headset, the platoon leader gestured to reinforcements. They were positioned south of the brace of Homeland vehicles, lights blinking.  
Two Army National Guard soldiers, on loan from NORTHCOM, began blocking off the far right lane. Traffic slowed and merged left, honks blaring and fingers flailing around the merging vehicles.  
Three sergeants jogged up and surrounded Chertoff, who still commanded a personal radius of several meters. DHS personnel manned an outer arc confining Chertoff against the bridge’s wide, bleach-white railings. The arcs adjusted with each step Chertoff made.   
Chertoff’s eyes spewed fury, but his face remained impassive.  
One sergeant pulled a thick black pack from his leg pocket and unrolled it across the hood of an armored vehicle. He rested his foot across the front end of vehicle’s undercarriage kit. “We’re going to need a blood sample, sir.”

Director Callahan clicked over to the bridge’s eastern rail camera. He put the suspect up on the 110” Ultra HD center screen. 

“This is ridiculous,” Chertoff stated, doing his best to swallow his anger.   
“Gentlemen, there’s been a clerical error of some sort. If you’d—”  
“We’re getting pitch changes consistent with terror classifiers,” stated the DHS platoon leader. He was reading digital indicators off a black handheld monitor, its grip shaped like a rugged steering wheel. “Can you run this man through the remote full body scanner, sir?”

“Activated,” responded the deputy in the corner of Callahan’s command room.   
The deputy zoomed in. 

Callahan watched Chertoff’s jaw twitched back and forth on the big screen. “Insider threat,” Callahan grumbled.

The DHS platoon leader stepped through the outer perimeter of National Guard troops that surrounded Chertoff on the side of the bridge.   
“Please look into here, Mister… Chertoff. Please look here, Mister Chertoff.” He gestured to a thick grey visor in one of the sergeant’s mitts and repeated, “Please look here, sir.”

“He’s getting away!” Chertoff fumed.   
“Sir, if this is indeed a mix-up, you’ll be on your way… if you’d just cooperate.”  
Rage boiling the bags above his prominent cheekbones, Chertoff shed his trench coat and leaned forward into the retinal scanner.

Director Callahan took a loud sip of coffee and placed his polystyrene cup on the ledge in front of him. He read out the stats from the retinal scanner.  
“Pupils abnormally dilated...”  
Callahan tapped two keys and perused a different data set.  
“Erratic changes in body heat…” he noted.  
He moved the mouse across three screens and double-clicked on an icon marked SteadSpect Insider Threat 3.0, an application developed by Lagoon Veil Enterprises of Herndon, Virginia. The program loaded quickly. Callahan and his deputy fed the program all available data. The program issued its conclusions within moments.   
Callahan stepped back. He rotated his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “Arrest him,” he commanded.

“Sir, please step over here,” the platoon leader ordered softly.   
Chertoff stood tall.  
Doing his best to reinforce the authority in his voice, the platoon leader repeated, “Sir, please. Step over here.”  
Chertoff followed slowly, wearing a blank expression.   
The platoon leader pulled a laminated card from his pocket and read it aloud. “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with U.S. Northern Command strives to treat all citizens with dignity and respect. Your case will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the justice system.”

The din in Art’s heart subsided slightly as he crossed into New Hampshire. He clicked up his directional signal, confirmed all was clear in his mirror, and merged into the right lane, settling in comfortably behind a family station wagon. He rolled down the passenger window, picturing the way Maya’s eyes had reflected the Atlantic.  
“I wonder if I’ll ever truly know the extent of her effort,” Art mumbled to himself. He sensed Maya had something to do with Chertoff’s detention, but he also knew he’d never know all the details. And what was the device she had fiddled with during their ride north? She was a step ahead of him in life as well as death.   
He thought about his feelings for Maya. Part of him felt honored to have been graced by such a spirit. The other part of him felt enraged. He needed to keep fighting. The war against corporate greed and government oppression was far from over. He vowed to do as Maya had done: guide a prepared soul towards revolution.  
He drove in silence past the rundown New Hampshire liquor stores. He moved his seat back one notch and leaned left into the flow of autumn air. Maya’s lessons surged clearly: enjoy life while engaging in acts of resistance, and let your life be a cog in the machine. “We have to make sure our house is in order… before we rebel. Both sides are good to go.” The last of his tears dried in the crisp autumn air as he pondered ways to honor Maya’s memory.


	11. Chapter 11

Tysons Corner, Virginia

“Shit it’s cold,” Chertoff’s personal assistant said loudly as she entered the man’s condominium. To all outward appearances, she was nothing more than the personal assistant, perhaps at most a disgruntled sibling or an eccentric cousin. A bottle of olive oil hard soap arced widely in her left hand as she closed the door with her right. The bottle grazed a lone orchid poised next to the entranceway.   
She turned and appraised the small living room. Her official mission from the Agency’s Office of Security was clear: look for any compromising information or unsecured classified information. She had requested this task personally, adeptly forestalling the usual Office of Security suits from trudging on down. The higher-ups in the chain of command had been happy to oblige, knowing the special access programs that she and Chertoff had initiated were numerous. No additional clearance would have to be issued; no new people would have to be read into their programs. And knowing how much Chertoff was feared, even in temporary isolation until such time when his name could be expunged from the Insider Threat database, most Office of Security personnel were eager to keep their distance from this assignment.  
She walked around the tapestry in the center of the living room en route to the kitchen. Her nails, mini-axes, wrapped fiercely around the soap bottle. Her sneakers, padded inside sterile booties, left no telltale signs. She stepped up into the kitchen and eyed the porch through the blinds. She got to work, donning gloves and preparing the simple solvent; a couple drops of the hard olive soap were as effective as any Agency concoction at removing fingerprints and neutralizing human dander. Its peppermint aroma filled the condo, overtaking the prevailing smell of tired tapestries, wilted orchids, and musty books. Scrubbing down the condo was tedious, but it was prudent and it provided her with time to think. She laughed at the simplicity of it all: turn the war industry’s tools against itself. But who had done it? Who had the audacity, ingenuity, and determination to hack into the system and upload Chertoff’s information? With the kitchen scrubbed, she moved on to living room.   
She had every right to guide her own destiny. And now was as good a time as any to pull the plug on her activities with Chertoff. This week had been a turning point. If she stuck around, she’d be reassigned to a lesser boss. She knew it. And she’d still be in the middle of a seething bureaucracy unable to cope with the events unfolding.  
She paused to assess her work. Unlike the glamor shown in Hollywood productions, much of a spook’s life was mundane, even routine.  
“Not bad,” she conceded. She checked her watch. Plenty of time.  
She walked back up to the kitchen, adjusting her gloves along the way. Underneath, her hands were sweaty and grimy—temporary discomfort amid outstanding success. She mounted the concrete countertop.   
“Do you even know my name?” she laughed, delightfully, as she disconnected three racks of state-of-the-art, commercial off-the-shelf hardware. She ignored the ache in her knees, which were grinding against the countertop.  
“Oh really?” she said, reading the name of a prominent competitor of Grough Defense along the hardware binding. “I gotta say,” she said. “I didn’t see that coming.”  
She removed the hardware piece by piece, securing the hard drives in their respective pouches inside her bag. On her hands and knees, she reached for a lone cloth bag a body-length away. From it she removed a blue wand with a dark pouch at the tip. After degaussing the remaining integrated circuits, more precaution than necessity, she holstered the wand and hopped back down to the floor.   
Her mind wandered controlled premises—one trait of many that made her heads and shoulders above the average bureaucrat within the bloated, corporatized intelligence community—as she carried out the rest of her immediate mission. Always a step ahead, she, the assistant, had also been always overlooked. Ultimate loyalties inconclusive, she thought about her own embrace of the bureaucracy.  
Her mind’s eye lit up. Black shapes bedecked in balaclavas, boots, and body armor leeched out of unmarked vans: the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team filed beneath an old hickory tree in staggered formation; HK416 rifles brushed lightly against communications wires resembling an army of caterpillars. Thick helmets and thicker disconnect blocked words of reason. Blue raid jackets over bulletproof vests shuffled behind, into the home. No valuable intelligence found. “Servare Vitas, my ass,” she whispered.  
She walked over to the step where she had arranged the boxes. Once far from Chertoff’s condominium, she would take her time cataloguing and assembling what little he had in the way of personal effects. After two hours, she would know the contents of six boxes inside and out, a manifest pinned to the top of each with equal and stingy amounts of tape.   
She walked to the kitchen—simple flash drives jiggled in her front trouser pocket—and gulped down some water straight from the faucet, making sure she opened and closed the faucet with the meat of her glove. She returned quickly to stand in front of the boxes. She reviewed everything in her mind—timetables, schedules, angles, and her plan. Plans beyond the immediate future repeatedly crept into her mind, but she systematically excluded them, refusing to entertain them until forty-eight hours hence, safely ensconced in a favorable refuge. She briefly fantasized about what last-minute intel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence she could pick up or squirrel away. She decided against it. Avoiding whims was part of what had kept her safe for years. Furthermore, her mind was yet a treasure trove, better than any portable document file. Her mind was the hard copy.  
“Do you even know my name?!” she flared. Her words, magma. Surprised at her own power, she laughed. “Calm down,” she told herself. “We haven’t won the war yet.”   
She ruminated, laughing at the absurdity of it all, the final chuckles masking fear of the future. Where would she land? Would her future companions welcome her completely? Would they suspect her of being a triple agent? She had lived among the worst of the worst for so long. No, they’d welcome her unconditionally and with open arms. She had sacrificed so much, she’d be welcomed a hero.  
She considered the layers of her organization. The basic headquarters’ foundation was intact: an outer circle and an inner circle. The outer circle implemented decisions made by the inner circle, though never privy to the inner circle’s deliberations or intentions. This cut down on penetrations and forever threw foreign intelligence organizations for a loop. Would she be employed in the future in either of these rings?   
No more. No more speculation until the time was right.  
She eyed Chertoff’s mobile device protruding from one of the boxes. It was always in her possession; Chertoff loathed smart phones, tablets, and their ilk. His reasonable caution had been her professional advantage. She bent over and tucked his mobile device down into the box.   
It took her two trips to load her vehicle in the underground garage.   
After performing redundant, routine, and specialized security checks, she whispered wonderment regarding a parallel, not-unfriendly organization operating in the area. “After the Divorce…” she said under her breath, boosting a box with her knee into the hatchback. “Damn them all.” She placed supplies and items of potential intelligence on the front seat. “May they thrive…” she offered in hushed tones, though her look conveyed disdain that the Array was wasting its time with its lofty ideals. Conceding admiration for their zeal and dedication, she mumbled, “Good luck to them.” The closing of the driver’s side door clopped off the end of her words as she sat down, checked her surroundings, and locked the car doors.   
She turned the key.

Portland International Jetport – Portland, Maine

“What?!” the old lady yelled, newspaper rustling in her hands. She sat hunched over in the front seat of a 1980s town car. Hers was one of five automobiles in the jetport parking lot.   
“Ma’am,” the police officer said, stepping a little closer to her window. “We’re looking for, well, we’re interviewing everyone in the area. Have you seen anyone who resembles this photograph?” A black and white picture glowed on his smart phone.   
“A-A-D-H-R-Z,” the old lady stated.  
“Ma’am,” the police officer said with little patience.  
“A-A-D-H-R-Z,” she recited again, slower this time, like a grumpy schoolteacher about to retire.  
“Ma’am,” the police officer said, wiggling his smart phone to attract the old lady’s attention. “Can you please answer my question? Have you seen anyone who looks like this?”  
“It’s the jumble. The morning jumble,” she replied. “Very difficult.” She turned her head and looked at the phone, the first time her eyes had left the newsprint of the Casco Gazette.   
“Ma’am?”  
“No,” she croaked.   
“Thank you,” the policeman huffed. He walked away quickly in search of another civilian.  
“A-A-D-H-R-Z,” the old lady whispered. Her hindquarters were sticking to the old, cracked seat. The police patrols had thinned out substantially over the past two hours. “Another thirty minutes and I’ll be good.” A bead of sweat sneaked out from under her nylon mask. It rolled down the remainder of her chin and leapt into the air. The bottom of the newspaper snatched it clean and blotted it into oblivion.  
She smoothed out the section in her hands, and tossed it on top of the rest of the newspaper on the passenger seat.  
After a quick glance around, she lifted the stack of papers and typed the log off command into the unwieldy device hidden beneath. Her specially designed instrument, what she called a ‘flavor router,’ powered down slowly. She then unplugged the battery pack from the cigarette lighter receptacle, wound the cord around her right hand, and slipped it into her coat pocket.   
Turning on the ignition, the old lady began to laugh. Reaching near fever pitch, she forcefully shut her mouth, causing tears to stream forth from her eyes. This further weakened the glue beneath her prosthetic mask.  
She was pleased with the results of her hacking effort; the Grough Caragrip encryption was strong, but her zero-day attack had worked like a charm. Able to wrangle her laughter under control, she checked the bandages beneath her raincoat and gown.   
“Ninety-nine point nine percent accuracy rate, my ass,” she whispered, accelerating gently out of her parking spot and around the bend.  
The top newspaper section slid off the stack, glanced off the door panel, and floated to the floor mat.

PARIS — The notorious terrorist María Maya Habash, known simply as Maya, is scheduled for posthumous trial Monday regarding her support for terrorist activities, a senior U.S. government official has informed the Post on condition of anonymity given the classified nature of the government’s ongoing pursuit of what it describes as domestic terror cells.   
The Panamá-born Maya, whose career of hatred began over a decade ago, was once serving a life sentence in Brussels for a series of attacks she had organized throughout Europe on behalf of socialist aims and anti-American activities. Militant actions attributed to Maya by high-ranking U.S. officials include breaking into Kleine Brogel Air Base in northeast Belgium and deactivating three nuclear warheads; fundraising for refugee camps in Lebanon; poisoning two U.S. defense attachés in the lobby of a Paris hotel; murdering heroic uniformed service members at Naval Submarine Base New London; and sabotaging two transnational pipelines, among other eco-terrorist charges.   
If convicted on any count of first-degree murder, she could be dealt a third life sentence, though given her deceased state these courtroom proceedings are viewed as largely symbolic.   
According to court documents, the chaos caused by her attack in Connecticut shattered windows, blew holes in several barriers, and sent shrapnel into nearby blast walls. Two seamen died from injuries sustained during the firefight with Maya’s terrorist faction.  
One year ago, a small Arab language newspaper in Paris, Al-Usra, published an interview with a woman it identified as Maya, though some officials from the U.S. Intelligence Community dispute the veracity of the interview. In the article, the woman said to be Maya asserted she carried out her attacks in the name of the justice and freedom for all oppressed classes. She claimed the average CIA official doesn’t know “one percent of what the Agency does,” due to strict compartmentalization. The interviewer said Maya just smiled when asked how she knows so much about a compartmentalized organization.  
She was, at the time, reputed to be the chief of an underground anarchist faction in Western Europe. According to court documents, Maya claimed "operational and political responsibility" for all of the group’s activities on the continent and for "all the injured or killed” in the name of ultimate liberation.   
The case to begin on Monday will be heard in private by a special panel of professional judges, with no jurors, in accordance with modern custom regarding terrorism trials inside the European Coal and Steel Community. All of the judges have served in various legal capacities with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.   
Maya was once a legendary case officer for the Agency, but a series of altercations at headquarters in Langley led her to leave the organization on hostile terms, according to multiple senior White House officials interviewed for this story. Prior to leaving the Agency, she had pushed for revamping the case officer training program, appealed to the inspector general regarding allegations of corruption among Senior Executive Service personnel, and attempted to institute a series of oversight reforms vis-à-vis the Agency’s alleged “domestic activities,” according to the files obtained in two separate Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Post.   
Officials have described Maya’s actions during her final year with the Agency as “disgraceful” and “unpatriotic,” while they classify her complaints regarding Agency oversight as “simple-minded.”  
She is survived by no known kin. 

Maya eased her foot away from the floorboards, riding the clutch into the center lane. She downshifted and coasted away. Soon she was well clear of the airport.  
She eyed the envelope on the dashboard, among its contents the flash drive containing data from Chertoff’s personal server. Soon she’d deliver the envelope to the Casco Gazette, the last independent print newspaper in the country. 

She found Art on Spring Street where he had stopped for a cup of tea. She abandoned the stolen car one block northwest, behind the dumpster next to a derelict nursing home. She continued watching her friend from the alleyway. He was in the café window, pacing his sips, no place to be and no time to be there. “You need time,” she whispered.

Emerging from the café less than a half-hour later, he walked up to the intersection with State Street, mustering a wave and a smile for an old-time barber who held out against stifling gentrification. Art turned to face the intersection, his gaze breezing over Maya’s hiding place. The wind whipped up leaves, plastic scraps at his feet, and other litter, but he merely stood there, a numb look on his face, studying a bookstore with a green awning across the street. He crossed the street and ducked into the shop.  
Avon St. swung limply from a corner post to which two rusty bikes clung. Maya glanced down the street. The narrow lane stood out—not a piece of litter poisoned its grounds. A lone tree cultivated bold greens in the beyond.  
Maya paused outside the bookstore, pretending to scrounge in her tattered pocketbook as she took in the shop. A green hand was painted on the smudgy window to the left of the jade door. She bet the store would have a loving owner who struggled to keep the place afloat amid digital dystopia. She took a step towards the door. The display window on the right offered ridges of carefully arranged paperbacks, worn well by adoring readers. A snow-white cat cuddled on a thick yellow towel among the stacks. Maya withdrew her right hand from her crinkly pocketbook and opened the door. A bell jangled, surely alerting the owner to the presence of a new customer.   
Dim light coated Maya’s brow. Faint classical music emanated from the back of the store. Lute from the Italian Renaissance. Maya immediately spied Art, just a few feet away. He glanced up at her and returned his focus to the book in his lap. He looked worn, like an old shrub that had barely survived an exceptionally harsh winter. He sat to the right of the door on a raised platform beyond the smudgy window. Maya read the section heading on the bookshelf behind Art’s right shoulder. International Politics & Espionage. Fitting.  
She walked on, down the center aisle to the back of the shop. Halfway down the aisle the white cat darted across her path and disappeared into the next aisle through a gap in the books. Maya waddled on. She kept her ears attuned for the doorbell’s jingle.  
“Good afternoon,” the cheerful proprietor greeted. She had long blonde hair and an enviable, childish twinkle to her verdant eyes. An old fashioned cash register with a crank handle towered to her left.   
“Whaaat?” Maya asked, feigning a little deafness.   
“Good afternoooon!” the cheerful proprietor regaled, not missing a beat.   
“Ah! Yes. Good day to you, young lady,” Maya replied, though the proprietor was comfortably in her fifties.   
The proprietor offered, loudly, “Please let me know if you need help finding anything!”   
“Thank you.”   
With a genuine smile, the proprietor returned to tabulating book prices. She raised a book to the dim light and eyed it like she was examining a rare gemstone. Maybe she was. After close scrutiny, she placed the book under her nose, flipped through the pages rapidly, and inhaled. When finished, she placed the book on the counter in front of her, opened the front page, and wrote a price in light pencil in the top right corner.   
Maya turned and headed up the aisle to her left. The cat was nowhere to be seen. She peered around the far end, checked in on Art, eyed the bell above the door, and walked back down the aisle. She stopped in front of a collection of old postcards. Four for a dollar, read a dusty index card tacked to the crate. Maya shuffled a stack of cards. To the side, she placed postcards she found intriguing: two chairs facing a Penobscot Bay sunset; an old aircraft carrier churning through high seas; and a giant wreath over a warm hearth.   
“I need one more,” Maya noted. “Hmmm.” She picked up another stack and flipped through. Only when she found an old lighthouse was she content. Its tower, ringed red and white, rose nobly against the bluest sky. Where was the picture taken? Nearby? She waddled to the back of the store once more.   
The proprietor smiled at Maya’s reappearance.   
“Nearby? No. That’s from Quoddy State Park. Pretty much as far northeast as you can go in the state.”  
“I’ll have to visit,” Maya said slowly.   
“I’m not sure, but I believe it is the eastern most part of these here United States.”  
“How lovely,” Maya said, charmed.   
“Quite,” the proprietor replied. Her eyes twinkled. Green secrets lay beneath.   
“How much?” Maya waved the postcards.   
“For you? They’re free.”  
“Please. I insist,” Maya contended, rummaging around in her pocketbook.   
“No, no.” The proprietor smiled bold and brilliant.   
“Thank you,” Maya said simply, genuinely, fully into character, though no character was needed to appreciate the woman’s generosity. “Do you mind if I still look around?”  
“Be my guest.”  
Maya returned to the front of the store. Art hadn’t moved. She parked herself in front of the Gardening section.   
Art surfaced a little over an hour later after a recuperative swim among the shelves, nothing in hand. If he had bought anything, it was tucked somewhere on his person. His numbness appeared to thaw after a few hesitant steps. Maya thought he looked like he was trying to appreciate the elements again. Does he understand the significance of Operation LBJ? How will he act when it’s overseas actions take place? Would he still want to play a part stateside, leading a contingent of rebels, maybe? Art shuffled away from the bookstore as a sprinkle descended from patchy clouds. He returned to the intersection with State Street and took State Street down to Commercial, Commercial to the bridge.

Maya sat on a warm bench—still in disguise, an old lady appreciating her final days—looking south upon the Willard Beach seashore. A rock pigeon bobbed at her feet. The bird fled when Maya adjusted her seat. She looked behind her, north. The buildings of Southern Maine Community College rose sparsely against the sea breeze. She appreciated the breeze. She yawned, and some salt air sneaked into the gap forming between her right ear and her lower jaw. She’d have to ditch the disguise soon. No problem.   
Barefoot, Art walked slowly along the shore. She saw his future clearly now. She saw a man aware of his surroundings, a rebel comfortable with his choices.

Cutler, Maine

Angela stopped three paces in front of her mother, Donna Stockton. Her left foot turned inward to her right ankle. She looked up at her mom.   
“I’ve missed you,” Angela whispered.   
Donna lunged forward and swept Angela off her feet in a beastly hug. Angela surrendered, surprised at a physical power she had never before witnessed in her mom. Donna’s curly black hair cascaded down Angela’s back.  
Richard limped toward his son Michael, who ran head-on into his dad’s right leg, grabbing the calf in Richard’s back-step, like a jungle hero riding a thick vine.   
Dirt smudged Michael’s face.   
“You look like a real cowboy, Mikey,” Donna said, looking down at her son. She released her daughter. Michael leapt down from his father’s leg. Donna licked her thumb and began wiping away the muck on Michael’s soft cheek. Michael raised his hands and draped them behind his mom’s neck.  
Angela walked over and hugged her father gently. She nestled her face into the side of his belly. Richard hugged his daughter tenderly, his height allowing him to cradle her neck in the crook of his elbow. They rocked back and forth in the shadow of the monstrous communications tower.   
“We should go inside,” Angela suggested, a few raindrops on her neck and forearms.  
The family walked in silence to the narrow pale blue door.  
“What is this place?” Michael asked, breaking the silence as Donna propped the rusty door open.   
“It’s for pop’s job,” Donna replied. She handed her husband a folded slip of paper.  
“I’ll be right back,” Richard said to the family.   
“Wait,” the matriarch ordered.   
Richard, Angela, and Michael stopped in their tracks.   
“Before we go in, we need to appreciate those who’ve gone before us. My words might not make sense now, but I ask you to keep them in mind over the next couple of months.”  
Richard nodded quickly, encouragingly.   
Donna continued. “There are several powerful groups in this world. We will, as a family, come in contact with some of them here and there. We must respect those groups that leave no trace, like the one founded by a female friend, a new female friend. Like a strong hiker, the best organizations leave no trace where they’ve tread. Others, which we hope to avoid, leave an area contaminated, like a mound of polystyrene on a pile of leaves.”  
“We’ll repeat this advice often,” Richard said, addressing his children. “Please let us know if you ever have any questions.” He exhaled slowly, his mouth an oval. He looked at the condensed water molecules, the cloud that drifted slowly away from his face. He seemed quite content.  
Angela smiled. Michael held his mother’s hand tighter.  
Richard stepped through the doorway.  
Angela followed her father into the imposing communications tower and up the steel steps. Richard turned around, looked at Angela, and then looked at his wife who was parked in the doorway. Donna nodded subtly.   
“Okay,” Richard conceded, offering his right hand to his daughter. “Come with me.”   
Donna tossed him a set of keys. Richard caught them with his left hand.  
Angela smiled and jumped up to her pop’s step. She took his right hand and they walked up, around the bend, and out of sight.   
“Yell if you need me!” Donna shouted after them.  
Donna settled with Michael in the entranceway, her back against the lower jamb. The cold rain was pattering steadily, mellifluously.   
“I can see my breath,” Michael said, taking a seat next to her.  
“Are you cold?” Donna asked.   
Michael shook his head and nuzzled into her lap. Donna produced a sandwich from one of her trouser pockets. She gave one half to Michael who promptly scarfed it down with two hands. She nibbled the top portion of the second half and then gave the rest to Michael. He took a few bites and handed it back to his mom.   
Grateful, Donna said, “Thank you.”  
Michael curled up under her bosom.   
Donna pictured the near future. How would she answer the hard questions? She could see Richard trying to explain their occupation to Angela. ‘Does mom know?’ Angela might say in the early going. Donna laughed. Richard would too when explaining their humble operational beginnings. Maybe he’d try to explain on a long train ride down the California coast, his smile would be one of many he’d let slip during the trip. ‘Mom… she is also in the family business,’ he’d say loudly, slapping his belly. Would Angela be stunned? Would she appreciate her parents’ sly ways? Would she embrace the intellectual side of espionage? Would she be more of a number cruncher like Art? Or more of a brilliant operator like Maya? And how would Michael eventually react? Donna imagined future discussions with her children would be easier than what Agency employees go through; they could never justify Agency actions in Laos, Nicaragua, or Angola, for example. Use and abuse, for imperial aims. The Rite was no better.  
“We have to go upstairs in a bit,” Donna informed her son.   
“Cool,” came Michael’s soft reply.  
Donna was content. She knew Michael would understand the lesson of history: Undermine imperialism, knock down capitalists, and seek justice because your heart taps into the universal pulse. 

The panel grumbled like an angry tyrant and then beeped twice. A dusty punch card rolled out of a dried slot at waist level. Richard bent down and plucked it out. He held the card tightly in his right hand. In his left hand he examined the paper instructions that Donna had given him. T’s parting wisdom graced the bottom: Earth, your temple. Nature, your provider. He handed the punch card to Angela.   
“Do you know what this is?” Richard asked, flicking the punch card with his index finger.  
“Nope,” Angela replied.   
“It’s confirmation,” Richard said.   
“Confirmation,” Angela repeated, eager to absorb all she could.  
Richard pulled his daughter into his side and rubbed her head with his weighty palm.   
“Yeeeee!” Donna squealed. Michael was clinging to her forearm with both hands, as she helped him swing from the top step to the landing.  
Richard and Angela turned around. His smile informed his wife that all was well: the message had been received. Their allies working in the facility beneath Mount Yamantau in the Ural Mountains would relay their message promptly. Necessary redundancy to help a new ally. A new friend.  
Angela handed her mom the punch card.   
“Can we stay here a while?” Michael asked.   
Donna studied the punch card. She smiled as the old machine whirred.  
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” Donna said, picturing nor’easter winds and snow rattling a cozy cottage on Little Machias Bay. 

Donna pulled the rusty door shut at the base of the communications tower and slid in a shiny new padlock. It wouldn’t stop a government inspection, but she knew the odds were slim that a government official would be up here any time soon. She closed the padlock with a powerful crunch. She spun the dial to zero, turned around, and walked to the car where her family was waiting. She stopped halfway to remove her shoes. The cold ground and pine needles invigorated her. The sympathetic energy of a changing season rocketed from her soles into her hips. Possibilities abounded: Winter here? Head back to the Beltway? Move to the west Coast? Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego is always hiring. Richard’s résumé would be attractive bait for their triplewart seadevil—their bureaucratic glut. She hopped into the passenger seat while Angela took the lead helping Michael get buckled. She then leaned over, kissing her husband while he was starting the car. Her lips lingered on his cold scruffy cheek. He turned and planted a quick one on her lips. She could see their breath as he pulled back and reached for the heat controls.   
“No,” she whispered. “I like them cold.”  
He removed his hand from the toggle. 

Lebanon: Qala’at al-Shaqif

“It looks so small,” the Irish soldier said of the Litani River from his perch atop Qala’at al-Shaqif in southern Lebanon.  
“Indeed,” his Salvadoran partner agreed. Both soldiers worked for the United Nations Interim Force, UNIFIL.  
“The olive groves are gorgeous,” the Irish soldier said with a sigh. “We’ve got nothing like that back in Wexford.”   
“I don’t want to go back out on patrol tomorrow,” the soldier from El Salvador admitted. He pivoted northwards and raised heavy binoculars to his eyes.  
“Me neither,” the Irish soldier replied. Both were fearful of the unexploded ordnance, which the Israeli military had littered across the land during successive incursions.  
“Good thing we’re not,” the Salvadoran soldier said lowering the binoculars. He offered the Irish soldier the last of quarter of his pastry. They exchanged looks: gleaming eyes for dimpled cheeks.  
“Good thing,” the Irish soldier repeated. He took his time savoring the bite.  
In meditative silence, the battle buddies packed up their gear, took one last look around the gorgeous panorama, and descended through the ancient castle. The stairs and scaffolding shook as they entered into the main foyer. The site was in its eighth year of a sluggish restoration effort. The Irish soldier admired new graffiti on a smooth façade as they stepped through a hole in the southwest wall.   
The duo climbed down the hillside, treacherous terrain no matter how many times they navigated it. A Lebanese military checkpoint eyed them casually from two hundred meters southeast.   
A dusty sports utility vehicle waited for them at the bottom of the hill.   
The Irish soldier climbed into the back seat next to two friendly faces in civilian clothes. The Salvadoran soldier climbed into the front.  
“Perfect timing,” the driver said as she turned on the engine. She adjusted the rifle in her lap and pressed the clutch.   
The man in the back left seat rolled down his window by hand. “You know some of the main outer walls date back to the Crusader period?”   
“I don’t know if that period ever ended,” the driver replied.   
The Salvadoran laughed.   
The man by the back left window smiled broadly. He adjusted the small black backpack at his feet and gazed out the window at the passing landscape.   
Most of the two-hour drive north on 51 passed in silence.   
The traffic in Beirut did not bother them today. They smiled at the honking horns and even tolerated the billboards—light skinned faces frolicking with the latest gadgets. After a brief shortcut, the driver tore through Al-Daoura and got back on the coastal highway. They exited south of Hamat, meandered west and then north on the Sea Side road.   
The Salvadoran caught sight of the humble docks before any of the other passengers. Forty minutes early, they continued driving north. Knowing the roads well, having completed many dry runs, the friends and allies pulled into a turnout overlooking the choppy seas. They waited patiently, engine off. Their vehicle blended nicely with the various construction vehicles parked in the dusty patch.  
An old monastery, girded with torn tarps over metal beams, loomed behind them. The kind bells of a mid-day procession, sparsely attended, echoed into the vehicle.   
“Here she is,” the Salvadoran said calmly, clearly sporting the best eyes among them.  
“Indeed,” said the driver, squinting.  
An unseen hand slowly hoisted a flag on the southwest end of the shipyard. Atop a modest mast, the red whirlwind on a white background fluttered soundlessly.   
The driver started the engine and pulled out of the turnout. Her eyes smiled at the Irish solider in the backseat through the rearview mirror. She passed her rifle to the Salvadoran in the passenger seat.   
“May someone light a candle in the monastery for us tonight,” murmured the Salvadoran, accepting the weapon delicately.   
A container handler revved in the distance. Made in South Korea but decked with Arabic and English writing, it picked up a rusty grey shipping container. With a little chugging and sputtering the container handler turned toward a semi-trailer truck.   
The container handler stalled as the SUV containing soldiers and companions drove under a raised barricade and coasted down into the port. Two port security guards, friends and peers, waved to the dusty SUV.

Master Sergeant McCauley scratched his scruffy neck again and again as he waited in the shade of the semi-trailer for the crate to descend.   
“Lazy-ass fuck,” McCauley grumbled, gesturing impatiently to the operator of the container handler.   
McCauley had been in U.S. Special Operations Command for twenty years. This deployment—SOCOM liaison to the Lebanese Armed Forces—was his favorite so far. Previous tours had included time on the Somali coast, the mountains of Mindanao, and the back alleys of Fallujah. Here in Lebanon, he got to wear civilian clothes, had plenty of free time to drink in Achrafiyeh, and received an off-the-books stipend from the defense contractor whose product he was helping move from the port to a nearby Air Base. There, acting as both liaison and logistic support facilitator, he’d help the defense company get the product up and running.  
It was a good gig, and he deserved it. In two months he’d return to Bragg and put in for retirement. Then he could sign new papers with the defense contractor and be back in Lebanon shortly, but with four times the pay.   
A young woman was approaching. Her beauty stunned the SOCOM liaison, but he proceeded professionally. He waved up the hill to the guards at the gate, telling them to send a man down here. They waved back. Incompetent Arabs.  
“Ma’am,” the SOCOM liaison stated, flashing a flimsy plastic badge provided to him by the privatized port conglomerate as part of his in-processing with the U.S. Embassy. “Ma’am, this is a restricted zone.”  
The container handler started up again and clacked the shipping container into place on the flatbed.   
“Tis okay,” the woman replied, stopping several paces in front of him. She smiled and pointed to a gaggle clattering identification cards around her neck. One dropped to the ground. She bent over to pick it up next to her boot.   
The SOCOM liaison yelled into the cab of the nearby semi-trailer truck. “Hey Mahmoud! Start the engine, will ya?”   
The engine on the truck fired up with a rumbling huff. The SOCOM liaison looked around at the desolate port, stepped around the woman in a wide arc, and headed for the semi.   
The woman’s snarling face startled him the most. He didn’t see the dagger in her hand. Her lunge covered three paces in a second. He punched her in the stomach and gouged her left eye. It was all he could do from his disadvantageous angle. But he was already bleeding. Her assault was fierce and rapid, attacking and recoiling like the local named Macrovipera bornmuelleri.

McCauley regained dim consciousness, dust and bitumen chaffing his lower lip. He rolled over. A guard stood over him wearing an amused look. McCauley tried to stand, but quickly fell amid nausea’s onslaught. He had lost a lot of blood and his right Achilles tendon was severed. He knew more damage peppered his body, but he had more immediate concerns: the tractor-trailer and its load of AGM-114 air-to-surface missiles were gone.

Bahrain: Al-Manamah

“… and the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.   
“And the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.”  
“So help me God.”   
“So help me God.”  
The three U.S. Marines completed their reenlistment oath, saluted sharply, and walked off stage. Some light applause splattered up from deep within the audience, signs of a civilian component unsure how to proceed.   
“How’d I do?” jested Secretary of the Navy, Dick Hollis. His voice echoed off the Naval Computer & Telecommunications building and flew back into his ears. Picking up on the light applause, Secretary Hollis encouraged the crowd, “Yeah!” He started clapping vigorously.   
The audience applauded a little harder, but most of the officer ranks remained stationary. Their chair legs stabbed the sparkling green sod like ladders of self-important spacemen.   
Secretary Hollis shrugged, keeping up a comedic demeanor. “Thank you for your attendance here today at this all hands call,” he boomed. The speakers crackled with distortion. He stepped back and approached the microphone once more. His top-heavy frame bumped the podium gently.   
“And, to be honest, not a bad place to be.” Secretary Hollis enjoyed good rapport with the troops. He was versed well in how to speak in front of an Armed Forces crowd; he had served as a squadron executive officer during his time in the Air Force, before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel and entering the venture capital game.  
“But seriously, I offer my sincerest appreciation for all you do in protecting our freedoms, and to the folks back home who ensure you have all the gear and weaponry to get the job done and return home safe.” He felt the sun’s heat on his forearms. He rolled down the sleeves of his pricey dress shirt, sacrificing airflow for UV protection.   
“The facilities here at Naval Support Activity Bahrain are state of the art. Morale, Welfare, and Recreation takes good care of you guys. I, for one, am a big fan. They provide exceptional services for all of the tenant commands here, and I know they’re always ready and willing to lend a hand and help out.” He paused for a sip of water. He could tell the crowd appreciated his mixture of formal speech and informal zeal. “People are what make the organization,” the Secretary said, tossing an empty plastic water bottle to an unseen aide, stage right. “And that’s all you guys.” The aide tossed him a fresh eight-ounce plastic bottle, which he caught smoothly.   
“My lovely wife toured many of the facilities here earlier today. She caught the enlisted barracks, the galley… I know she was in the Expeditionary Medical Facility for a bit. She’s a nurse, you see….” He cracked open the new bottle and took a swig. “She’s going to join me again tonight for dinner. Oh! There she is!” Secretary Hollis pointed to his wife. She was standing off to the side of the stage, surrounded by gold and silver oak leaves, men and women from CENTCOM’s public affairs office, hand picked by the commanding general for their enthusiasm and easygoing efficacy.   
“I hear it’s steak night!” the Secretary boomed, riling the crowd, which emitted a laidback chuckle. His microphone crackled and cut out momentarily. “… another example of the Navy’s enduring commitment to engage with partner nations throughout the Gulf. We will never waver from our theater security cooperation mission.  
“Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your sacrifice. Coming out here and visiting with you has been a true honor. This is one hell of an active AOR. You take the fight to the enemy and you should be damn proud of it. On behalf of my wife and me, and the whole DOD team for that matter, God bless America and God bless all of y—”  
The explosion incinerated the Secretary and over half of the attendees. A third of those who survived the explosion would be permanently disabled due to the effects of shrapnel, contusion, and concussion. One, in a fit of gallows humor, would remark that the events that day gave new meaning to the term ‘all hands call.’  
The RIM-162 missile had cost a little over one million U.S. dollars, not including contractor logistics services, maintenance, or field service representatives. It had taken three rebels, each with the rank of raqeeb, from the Royal Bahrain Naval Force and one mole, a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy, less than an hour to remove the missile from its quad-pack inside the vertical launch system and set it up on display in front of the stage. The correct paperwork placated all inquiries. The detonator was a simple garage door opener, the maker’s corporate headquarters located in a Chicago suburb. Fuses on other improvised explosive devices had been adjusted and set to detonate with a cue from household motion sensors. The plans for the attack had been revised weekly for over two years. The cadre of architects was limited to less than ten, the implementers no more than forty. After the explosion, the enlisted men among the Bahraini military police abandoned their official posts in the drop of a hat. They turned their arms against imperial forces with a ferocity not seen since locals had fought the Saudi military in the spring of 2011. Leftists and religious conservatives united in an alliance of convenience reminiscent of the 1990s uprising of dignity. Today’s rebels had many allies in their fight: the fog of war; the complacency of an imperial force sitting cozily in an allied nation; and compartmentalization and chain of command. Each step was right out of Empire’s own playbook. Gnawing hatred of Western machinations and imperial slaughter bloomed in seconds into rugged, vigorous resistance. The rest was history. 

Nary a uniform stirred.  
French doors swung freely at the Bahrain project office of the corporation that made the fuselage of the MQ-8C unmanned aerial vehicle. Paperwork blew aimlessly. The stained pages tasked two employees to meet privately with Congress in order to push for increased U.S. Navy destroyer presence in contested waters.   
A cathodic protection system blinked silently in the depths of a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser. A fleck of dried egg yolk fell off the front panel and landed gently on the floor. Dermatophagoides looked up, thrilled.  
The launching system, which had recently housed four RIM-162 missiles, sat, slightly singed, the result of a classic misdirection that historians would never uncover. The deck of the USS George W. Bush bobbed peacefully. Usually partial to shrubbery or crags, a female Chukar partridge bedded down in a dust-caked F100 fan.   
A classified satellite from El Segundo, California, observed migratory birds painting the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower deck with fecal matter, honoring nooks and crannies with undigested seeds and fertilizer.  
A battered Arabian Wolf, panting harder than the crown prince after one flight of stairs, slunk stealthily behind a grimy Japanese pickup truck. Dried saliva from a Navy ensign named Randy who once roamed these parts still enameled the underside of the windshield wiper handle.   
Memoranda regarding thermostat regulations tumbleweeded across the P-9-11 parking lot. Socotra Cormorants sat next to a row of reflector belts outside the Freedom Souq. An arch suspension bridge lay in a funk across the causeway, an early target of the local rebellion. Container cranes swayed idly. Imperial penetralia rusted.

Jordan: Prince Faisal Air Base

The Jordanian portion of Operation LBJ started sixteen minutes late, a remarkable feat considering the distances involved; the missive sent via submarine hadn’t arrived yet, but the redundant communiqué – traveling via the diplomatic pouch of an anonymous SSNP mole within the Russian military establishment – had arrived more or less on time.  
An Arabian oryx lounged outside the west gate of Prince Faisal Air Base near Jafr in the southern Jordanian desert. He watched a convoy of six armored vehicles, made in South Bend, Indiana, speed along the bumpy access road toward the guard shack.   
The lead car in the convoy slowed to a crawl.   
Three men stepped forward to meet the convoy.   
“They’re not on the access roster,” the senior MP directed the nearest private security contractor.  
The senior MP’s radio crackled, an unfamiliar voice telling him to expect the next batch of international fighters for an Agency training program. He tapped his ring finger impatiently along the trigger guard of his M4 carbine.   
“Who’s escorting them?” the contractor inquired as the lead vehicle stopped meters from the gate.   
Kalashnikov fire cut him down first.   
In the blink of an eye, soldiers burst forth from the second vehicle. Soldiers dismounted the third vehicle and fanned out north and south, ensuring clear lines of fire, just as they had practiced so many times during combined training days at Fort Irwin and Fort Bragg.  
Forty rounds per minute from over ten different rifles had no problem dispensing with the imperial troops and mercenaries guarding the west gate.  
The driver of the first armored vehicle—a woman in a tigerstripe uniform and a bordeaux beret—accelerated and crashed into the west gate. The gate caved and soon gave way. The attackers’ calculations were correct. The up-armored 3,100 kg vehicle had little trouble gashing the reinforced chain-link fence. Irony was lost amid the chaos: In 2016 a federal contractor based in Chicago, Illinois, had upgraded the gate and the base’s fencing. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had overseen the project.  
The second vehicle ground up and over the adjacent gatehouse.   
The third vehicle breezed by the first two, now taking the lead along the fresh asphalt road. The driver wondered aloud how well his colleagues in the mobile artillery units along the northern border we doing in their mission to overwhelm their chunk of imperial troops. Empire had overstretched itself. And they were taking advantage.   
Pentagon spokespeople, speaking on behalf of the Rite due to the classified nature of the training program, would later refer to this as a ‘series of unfortunate events’. Some Arabic newsprint would refer to it as the beginning of the end of Empire’s presence in the Arab world, and, eventually, the Asian continent.   
Smoke ascended without complaint from three holes in the senior MP’s communications gear.   
The Arabian oryx stood up and walked away. He hated bloodshed.


End file.
